


The Comeback Kid

by Somebodys_Nightmare



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997), Final Fantasy VII Remake (Video Game 2020), Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, On The Way To A Smile: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Aging, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Co-Parenting, Domestic Fluff, Elderly People, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Sex, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Jealousy, Light Angst, Love, Makeup Sex, Marriage, Married Life, Mentor/Protégé, Mentors, Mixed Martial Arts, Old Friends, Old People Telling Stories, Parenthood, Personal Growth, Regret, Relationship Problems, Respecting the Elders, Romance, Smut, Strength, Strength from Adversity, Underdog Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:48:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 65,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26049061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somebodys_Nightmare/pseuds/Somebodys_Nightmare
Summary: Fifteen years ago, the rush of battle and combat were an everyday part of Tifa’s life. With the world calm, marriage and family life have made her complacent, and Tifa feels like she has lost her edge. With a little help from Cloud, she reawakens the passion for combat she once had, unaware that ghosts from her past are ready to remerge, sending her on a mission of self-discovery.Tifa soon learns her true strength is much more than the power behind the flames of her fists.  COMPLETE.
Relationships: Tifa Lockhart & Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 152
Kudos: 151
Collections: Cloud and Tifa





	1. When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by my chronic back pain and also The Midnight song, [The Comeback Kid](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVoVA6itDmI&list=RDNVoVA6itDmI&start_radio=1)
> 
> This chapter takes its name from the Gunship song [ When You Grow Up, Your Heart dies.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri9IefTuNzc)
> 
> Fic will be approximately 4 chapters and updated weekly or biweekly.
> 
> Special thank you to [spaceOdementia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia) for being the best beta and friend ever and making sure this first chapter didn't blow up completely in my face. Without you this would be sitting on the cutting room floor.

The Comeback Kid

——————

Chapter One

When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2022 | September 21St

Tifa winced as she pulled the steering wheel of her dark silver sedan over the stripe of highways that stretched across the Eastern continent, pulling away from the wide open expanse of fields and plains that bordered Kalm, driving in the direction of home to Junon.She kept one hand balanced on the wheel while the other was dropped to her left side, pressing her palm against the wet fabric of her torn blouse and feeling a sharp stab of pain run through her, her hand coming back up sticky with blood.

The monster attack had come on without any warning.Tifa had been driving back from the Seventh Heaven franchise in Edge, where she had met with the manager she had hired a month prior, a young woman with a master’s degree in marketing named Lucinda, to discuss the prior month’s sales figures.On her way home, the drake had appeared without warning and landed on the trunk of the car while Tifa was driving along the highway, throttling the vehicle and sending it careening off the road into the dirt and grass that lined the expressway.Tifa had felt everything jerk violently to the side with the sudden assault, her seatbelt cutting painfully across her chest and the jolt of the vehicle causing her stomach to flip.Cursing, she’d heard the monster stomping across the back of the car towards the roof, and before she’d had a chance to orient herself, she saw the second appear in front of the car, flapping its wings as it screamed at her, its yellow and green spittle soiling her windshield.

Ambushed, Tifa could not put the car into drive and steer it away from the fray with the way the drakes were attacking the car, claws digging into the aluminum, their wings batting against the vehicle.She’d had no choice but to engage directly with the beasts to get rid of them, and she found herself pulling on her leather fighting gloves before she inhaled a deep breath and then pushed the driver side door open.

Since the production of mako had ceased in the last fifteen years, the freak sideshows its use produced had begun to dwindle and die off.More and more, the roads and wilderness became safer, far more likely to be inhabited by natural fauna such as mountain lions and bears and reptiles than by _literal_ monsters, the twisted forms of life born from the depravity and corruption caused by processed Lifestream and the remnants of Jenova cells that pulsed within it.Still, it wasn’t enough to completely halt the birth of new monsters, and they still could be found wandering the terrain in their desperate, brazen packs, forever on the defense as the world continued to shift and change around them.One who might find herself traveling alone in the countryside could never be too safe.

It was only Tifa’s luck that she would be attacked by what was likely to be one of the few remaining packs of Cerulean drakes, one of the nastier brutes that still frequented the plains.

The fight had started out simple enough.Drakes were aerial beasts, but they stayed on the offensive, hovering close enough that close-range attacks could land with at least seventy percent accuracy, especially with Tifa’s agility for somersaults and leaping strikes.She hadn’t been carrying any materia that day, not really expecting to get into any battles, and so she had to rely solely on her physical onslaughts, deploying her most offensive strategy to drive them back.

In the end, she managed to defeat the pair of creatures, but not before taking a nasty side-swipe from one drake’s claw to her rib cage that had sent her tumbling through the grass at the side of the road.It was a deep, pulsating gash that ran red with blood, knocking the wind out of her as she tumbled through the brush, landing square on her back and feeling every muscle in her body scream back in protest.She had already taken out the smaller of the pair, leaving the larger drake, who was wounded but still fighting, to contend with. Tifa had to roll in the dirt quickly, feeling every muscle in her body strain and complain, her bones creaking as she pushed herself to the limit to avoid the drake’s next swooping attack.After kipping back up to her feet, feeling the gash at her side further tear, Tifa had finished the drake off with a swift, refocused twirling kick.

When the beasts had fully disintegrated into the Lifestream, Tifa had managed to stagger back to the car, clutching at the wound in her side, staining her hand red and sticky with thick blood.Thankfully, Cloud had insisted she keep a first aid kit in the trunk, along with several potions and healing elixirs, and she had managed to at least quell the worst of the damage to her side, though the pain lingered and the wound was still red, open, and angry.After wiping her hands clean and patching her side with a thick strip of gauze, Tifa surveyed the damage to the car, seeing the dents and holes in the metal where the drakes had clawed into the roof and trunk, and shook her head before sliding back into the driver’s seat, tires protesting against the mud as she tried to steer it back onto the road.

Now, as she drove back over the expressway, her left side throbbing with pain,Tifa inhaled deeply as she navigated her way back to Junon, feeling the soreness from the fight settle deep into her tissue and bone.She glanced at the time on the dashboard, and realized that it was already after three; thanks to the unexpected battle, she was running late to pick up her daughter from school.

She sighed as she drove, gritting her teeth, staring blankly as the road unfolded in front of her.With the exhaustion running through her bones, her mind began to wander into thoughts of how poorly she had handled the fight with the drakes, how poorly prepared she had been from the moment she had leaped out of the car, how weak every part of her body had felt as she fell into the rhythm of combat that she had been so in-tune with fifteen years ago.Now, thirty-five years old, and not having many opportunities to engage her body in such rigorous combat - the most excitement she saw these days were her workouts in their home gym - Tifa realized that she had lost some of the edge that she had once had years ago.She could still execute her moves with the same perfect grace, still remembered unconsciously every twirl and punch and flip, could still extend her legs in the same rapid and swift manner.But everything moved with a newfound stiffness, reminiscent of the slight, creaking resistance of the old floorboards in her childhood home back in Nibelheim whenever she would step too forcefully across them.

It terrified her to think that she might no longer be as agile and nimble or _strong_ as she once was, that she had neglected to keep up with the asperity of her past training that had once made her so fearless and nearly unstoppable.

By a quarter to four, Tifa was inside of Junon proper, navigating the streets away from the downtown sector to Midtown, where her daughter’s school was located.As she pulled the sedan through tree-lined streets, she was still pouring over the fight with the drakes on the road outside of the Wastelands, reanalyzing every parry and kick that she’d offered, deciphering how she might have handled things differently so that she wouldn’t have walked away so wounded.Only when she saw the orange and red brick and the tall glass windows of Junon Elementary come into view did Tifa drop her loathful and unproductive self- analysis and inner harassment.

As she parked in the school’s lot, she twisted in her seat slightly to get a look at her side, seeing the tear in the navy blue blouse she was wearing, the bandage she’d applied there already darkening with fresh blood.She sighed in frustration, grabbing her purse and pinning it to her side, hoping to hide the wound.The last thing she wanted was for her daughter or any of the teachers or school officials to see what had happened and to start asking questions.

The sun was shining high over the schoolhouse, a modern building that had been newly erected somewhere in the last five or six years.It was one of the reasons Tifa had wanted so badly to move to Junon not long after their daughter was born, frustrated with the terrible, piecemeal, and haphazard architecture in Edge.Once she launched the Seventh Heaven franchise with the WRO’s help several years ago, it soon became evident to Cloud and Tifa, who were both running sizable, rapidly expanding commercial enterprises, that they needed to make a change in lifestyle.When their family grew in size next, Cloud and Tifa had finally decided that it was time to consider buying a house.Tifa had suggested Junon - Midgar was out of the question, as it held too many painful memories for them both, and neither of them were interested in traveling too far west. Cloud had suggested Kalm, being quiet and picturesque, but its quaintness reminded her too much of Nibelheim, and she had always secretly admired the sleekness of Junon and its close proximity to the water.

As Tifa approached the schoolhouse, she found her daughter, Aster Zephora Strife, sitting on the curb against one side of the building, her knees folded together, her fingertips skirting across her PHS as it emanated its cool glow back at her face, her head bobbing slightly from side to side as she listened to her earbuds.She was dressed in dark jeans and a black and white striped hoodie that Tifa knew had the name and logo of one of her favorite bands etched across its back, her backpack laying forgotten across the curb.

Looking at Aster was like looking back at her own reflection, at a portrait of her younger self from lifetimes ago.Aster had inherited Tifa’s entire face, had her same long, straight dark hair, though she kept it fashioned in a ponytail, had her same sloping features and slim figure. They frequently earned remarks that they looked like sisters, Tifa often blushing at such statements and how utterly ridiculous they sounded. 

The only major difference between Tifa and her daughter lay in their eyes.Aster had inherited Cloud’s eyes, deep and blue like that sky above Nibelheim, just a shade more turquoise than his.The combination made Aster a breathtaking child to lay eyes on, destined to one day be just as, if not even more beautiful, than Tifa herself.

Aster had also inherited her personality from Cloud.If she was a reflection of Tifa as a moving picture, then she was a reflection of every word and page in Cloud’s book.They were so alike that it was sometimes jarring, and Tifa often found herself trapped between both of their endless seas of calm and quietude and carefully sheltered thoughts and feelings. Aster was quiet and contemplative, imaginative and intelligent, curious and intrigued by everything.She was the type of kid who would latch onto a specific interest and follow it obsessively - currently, her interest was reading and watching all of the cyborg science fiction she could get her hands on- and she spent most of her time reading or scrolling through her tablet, or drawing her favorite characters in the washi paper sketchbook Cloud had brought home for her one day from one of his visits to Wutai.She didn’t have many friends, but she had a few who she was very close to, and that seemed to be good enough.But most of all, she was a happy kid, and for that, Tifa was grateful.

She stopped in front of Aster, placing one hand on her hip as her shadow fell over her, still pinning her purse to her side to hide her injury.After a moment, Aster noticed her standing there, peering upward and peeling an earbud from her ear.

“Oh, hey, mom.” She started to gather her backpack, rising to her feet.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” Tifa apologized, deciding not to get into any of the business about the drake attack.“I got held up in Edge.Ready to go?”

Aster simply nodded, and together they walked back to the car.As Tifa opened the driver's side door, the motion caused her to pull at the gash in her side, rewarding her with a bright wince that almost had her doubling over.She tried quickly to mask it over with a blank, unconcerned expression, but as she slid behind the wheel, Aster was looking over at her.

“Are you okay, mom?”

Tifa blinked, feeling a line of sweat break out across her forehead.Among other things, Aster was incredibly perceptive.She was much like her older sister Marlene in that way, and although they were not related by blood, Tifa suspected that Aster had somehow inherited that trait from her.Turning over the car’s engine, Tifa pulled on her seatbelt before exhaling slightly and placing her still gloved hands carefully on the wheel.

“I’m fine, sweetheart.I just probably pulled a muscle.Come on, let’s go home.”

Aster’s tiny, round mouth parted as if she were about to say something, but then she offered Tifa the same confused glower that Cloud would often share with her when he was on the verge of protesting something he didn’t like, but was too unsure of his words to voice it.She closed her mouth and nodded slowly, buckling her own seatbelt and turning toward the window.

Backing out of the parking space, Tifa pulled her mind from the wound in her side and all of the associated negative feelings she was suddenly harboring about herself and her body by distracting herself, peppering Aster with questions about school and her day as she drove through the streets, meandering into Junon’s residential district.

Because of the city’s design, Junon’s residential neighborhoods were lined with blocks of row and terraced houses, tall, single-family units that were placed along the sidewalks with minuscule front lawns, and small, narrow driveways that separated one house from the next, most with spacious if not somewhat tight backyards.The streets were kept pristine and picturesque, bright green grass and art deco street lamps sidling the smooth, concrete sidewalks. Cloud and Tifa had purchased a two-story home, all red brick with white shutters and trim, on Bleeker Street, a quiet road that didn’t see much traffic.The sun was still high in the sky when Tifa pulled into the driveway, leaving enough room for Cloud to pull in his motorcycle behind her.As she stopped the car, she realized that the pain in her side had settled into a dull, throbbing ache.

Tifa and Aster made their up the stone front steps of their home and inside, greeted in the rich, cherry-wood and cream-wallpapered foyer by Schatzi, a white, orange, and black calico, a stray that Marlene had brought home almost nine years ago, when Aster was still a baby and they were still living in Edge.Although Cloud was not fond of cats, Schatzi, who had earned his name from the Old Nibel word for _Sweetheart_ , had quickly grown on Tifa and provided a distraction for Marlene and Denzel when Cloud and Tifa’s energies and attentions were focused on Aster.

The cat rubbed against Tifa’s legs before finding Aster’s, and Tifa watched as her daughter bent down and carefully lifted the feline into her arms before disappearing into the house, up the stairs to her room.Alone, Tifa let out a sigh and slid out of her shoes by the door, before dropping her keys on the small table by the door and heading into the kitchen to prep dinner for the evening.

The house was quiet.It was the first year that both Marlene and Denzel were away at university,Marlene attending in Cosmo Canyon and Denzel in Midgar, and Tifa was still not used to coming home to an empty house and its associated silence.Marlene had only just left for Cosmo Canyon three weeks prior, Barret joining them on Cid’s airship as they flew to the Western Continent to move her into her dorm, and there was a silent consensus among the trio of co-parents that none of them were ready for this step in their lives or to see Marlene living on her own.

Tifa felt the ache at her ribs continue to throb as she went through the motions of taking the now thawed chicken out of the refrigerator so that she could begin seasoning it for cooking.She chopped her vegetables very carefully, trying not to pull any more than necessary and risk aggravating the laceration that was marring her left side. Once the potatoes were seasoned and wrapped in foil, Tifa arranged the vegetables and chicken on an aluminum tray and shoved everything in the oven for slow roasting until Cloud arrived home.

Sighing, Tifa pressed her hand to her side and saw that her fingers came back wet and stained with red once again.Sure enough, the wound was still leaking, and had soaked completely through the gauze again. The blouse, which had been one of her favorites, was completely ruined. The annoyance washing over her with a fresh, red wave, Tifa washed her hands in the sink and made her way upstairs.

In the hallway, Tifa stopped by Aster’s bedroom door first.She could hear the dull, bleating tempo of a rock song gently beating its way through the walls, the strum of guitar permeating its cadence.Like Cloud, Aster had a low tolerance for loud sounds and noise, and as a result, kept her music to a surprisingly reasonable volume.Grateful for the small miracles in life, Tifa dropped one warning knock on the door before she carefully shouldered it open, finding Aster laying belly-side down on the bed, her legs kicked up behind her, scribbling something into a notebook with her both her PHS and tablet glowing at her side. Schatzi was curled up near a pillow at the head of the bed, his back against Aster’s knees.

Aster’s room was cool in purples and blues, the walls painted a faint periwinkle, her bedding floral with the patterns of wild indigo tulips and baby violets across it.Like Cloud, one of her flaws was disorganization, and Tifa blanched slightly at the messy state of her desk across the room from the bed, her laptop open but disconnected from its charger,papers and pencils and even a few books littering its surface.Dirty clothes had somehow missed the hamper and laid in a small heap on the floor where they’d been tossed a few inches away.Aside from that, the room was decidedly youthful and only slightly feminine, a few stuffed animals Aster’d collected settled on her bed and along the windowsill, her walls lined with a few band posters she’d recently put up.

“Working on your homework?” Tifa asked, cocking one eyebrow up and carefully folding her arms across her chest, careful not to pull too harshly at her injury as she leveraged her most discerning _mom look_ at Aster.Aster glanced up at her, nodding slowly.

“Yes,” she answered calmly and cooly, her tone almost exactly like Cloud’s whenever Tifa would find herself nagging him about something.Aster’s blue eyes flickered and pulsed softly, the cerulean shifting to an aquamarine under the sunlight that streamed in from her lace-curtained window.Even though she was staring back at her own face, Aster’s eyes always made Tifa feel like she was actually sharing a look with her husband.She gave her daughter a small, conciliatory nod, then looked around the room a bit.

“Okay.Good.Just clean up in here a little bit, okay?I am doing laundry on Friday.”She nodded to the heap of discarded clothing laying beside the hamper. “I need that sorted by lights and darks before you bring it downstairs.”

“Okay, mom.”

Satisfied, Tifa slid out of the room and closed the door behind her again, making her way down the hall.The next small bedroom on the right was Marlene’s - Denzel had taken over the space in the attic as his bedroom once Aster had grown old enough to need her own room - and Tifa only went in Marlene’s room on Saturday mornings to dust, sometimes finding herself sitting on the bed, glancing around at the pink femininity of Marlene’s choice in decor, amazed that the girl she had helped raise since she was a small toddler was now in college. 

And whenever Tifa was in Marlene’s room, glancing at the pale pink walls and the bedding adorned with fuchsia and yellow Stargazer lilies, she was always instantly reminded of Aerith Gainsborough. 

It had been fifteen years since her death, and Tifa still thought of her friend often, thought of the friendship that had just begun to blossom like the widening petals of a rose under the shelter of the sun, yet was abruptly and cruelly cut off, a thousand possibilities burned away into ash.Tifa had never truly gotten over her death, no matter how much healing rain was poured on them, no matter how much she could feel Aerith’s hand gently ghost over her shoulder in reassurance whenever she and Cloud would pay their respects at her church in Midgar, no matter how much she and Cloud had moved on in their lives, pacing frantically away from those days when they were nothing more than a ragtag group of revolutionaries and misfits with a thirst for vengeance chasing a megalomaniac through the rough terrain of the Planet. Tifa had learned to accept Aerith’s death, had learned to _learn_ from it, had grown to use her friend’s words to guide and shape the lives of her own children, steering them to be good and just and true.But deep inside, she never forgave the cruelty of the world and of fate for the hand that had been dealt.She would always miss Aerith, and she would always wish that there was a way that she could have lived.

Marlene’s room was a reflection of the impact Aerith’s short time with her had left.Marlene, who as a four-year-old grew surrounded by trauma and oppression, never forgot her brief interlude with the florist from Sector5.For the rest of her life, as Marlene grew into a beautiful, precocious young woman, Tifa constantly noticed how much Marlene had drawn from Aerith in those few short hours that they had spent together.Marlene had early on developed the same keen sense of awareness and perception that Aerith always had, noticing everything about everything and everyone, picking up on how others, especially her loved ones, were feeling and questioning why they behaved the way that they did, especially if seemed out of sync with what she was perceiving.Marlene even developed an increased obsession with the color pink, and by the time she was a preteen, she was demanding that everything, from her dresses to her backpacks to the covers of her spiral-bound notebooks be in some shade of the bright, sunny color.Cloud hadn’t noticed any of this, but it had been astounding to Tifa and Barret both.

“Trauma fucks you up in ways you don’t even know,” Barret had said one night to her and Cloud, ten years ago, when Tifa was pregnant and they were sitting in front of the fire at Seventh Heaven in Edge, the men swallowing back whiskey while Tifa palmed her swollen belly.“Marlene ain’t never forget those few precious moments she had with Aerith.They were a small light in a tunnel when the world was falling apart around my baby girl.”

Remembering this, Tifa placed her palm on Marlene’s door, but didn’t dare enter, not wanting to trigger a fresh set of emotions both at Marlene’s absence at university as a young woman and at Aerith’s absence in death.Instead, she expelled another sigh and made her way down to the end of the hall, to the last bedroom.

As the master bedroom in the house, Cloud and Tifa’s room was the largest.Tifa had made sure to decorate it in swirls of blue, her favorite color, the color of her husband and her daughter’s eyes.The walls were painted a deep, royal blue, contrasted by the pure, snow-white ceiling overhead.The four-poster bed was an indulgent king-size, swathed currently in the sky-blue silk sheet and comforter set that Tifa had recently pressed across the mattress when she changed the sheets earlier that week.Their closets were wood-paneled walk-ins, embedded deep into the walls, and Tifa’s cherry-wood vanity table was slatted against one wall beside their dresser and a tall, full-length mirror.The sunlight that was only beginning to fade as the sunset recaptured the horizon with the advent of early evening was streaming in through the large bow window that overlooked the front of the property, offering a brilliant view of the street below and Junon’s skyline to the west.

Tifa closed the door behind her, leaning against it and inhaling and exhaling a deep breath.Her ribcage was now on fire from neglect, the wound there not only throbbing but clearly beginning to pucker with the first puffs of infection.Aggrieved, Tifa began to slowly strip out of her clothing, balling her useless blouse up to be discarded in the trash later and leaving only her sports bra and underwear on before she pulled the soiled bandage slowly away from her skin.She tossed it with a disgusted sound low in her throat into the trash can by the door, before she walked over to the vanity to survey the state of things.

Her eyes dropped first to the angry red gash across her left side.It opened just under the ridge of her fifth rib bone, drawing to a line to stop about five inches above her hip.It was ugly, and it would leave a scar if she didn’t heal it properly.Tifa knew that Cloud kept his stash of materia locked in a chest somewhere in the basement, but she truly didn’t think this was worth the effort.She could heal it well enough with another elixir and some carefully applied salves.

Before moving to the bathroom to do just that, Tifa let her eyes scan and fall across the rest of her body in the mirror, her breath stilling in her lungs.At first glance, she looked very much the same as she had always remembered her appearance to be.She had been staring at her own reflection in the mirror daily for decades, but she had been oblivious until now at the subtle changes that were taking place. Childbirth had stretched a pull of flesh, slight but still there, across her abdomen that had once been as solid and firm as a rock.Her hips, which had always been full, were now softer and more feminine than she remembered.Where there had once been toned definition was now a pillowy softness, a fleshiness she hadn’t noticed before.Her thighs were in very much the same state of affairs.Even her upper arms, once as cut and sharp as diamonds, had grown fleshy and less toned.

Marriage and family life had made her rather soft, quite literally, she realized, poking at her stomach and pulling at the flesh, glancing at the lines of her abdominal muscles that were revealed again only once she pulled her skin taut a certain way.

Tifa glanced up at her face, drinking in her own features in the shining, reflective glass of the mirror.Perhaps most jarring of all were the tiny, almost imperceptible lines that had crept and settled at the corner of her eyes, two faint darts that wrinkled and curved with the stretches and emotions of her face, that bent and relented against every smile or frown or pout or thoughtful look.

The signs of age, she realized miserably.

Tifa had half a mind to scour her scalp for emerging grays, but that would be too tortuous, and instead, she pulled her image away from the mirror, shoving her thoughts down deep as she began to dig through the dresser for a clean pair of underwear and loungewear to pull on after her shower and redressing of her wound.Cloud would be home in a few hours, and she had to make sure that this wound was well patched before he arrived.She also needed to make a few calls to some of her local franchises to check on business, not to mention checking Aster’s homework before she finalized dinner.

Clutching her side again, Tifa quietly slipped out of her room and into the bathroom to wash and redress her wounds before resuming the remaining domestic duties that awaited her that evening, persistent doubts about the parts of her welcomed lifestyle changes that she hadn’t bargained for gnawing at the back of her brain.

* * *

It was dark outside when Cloud arrived home sometime after seven that evening, his boots sending echoes across the floorboards as he crossed through the foyer.Tifa heard the ring of his sword as he dispatched it with a clang against the wall, and she lifted her fingers from the keys at the cherry wood baby grand piano that was under the bay windows in the living room, where she had settled for a while to strike a few chords and clear her head while waiting for Cloud to come home for dinner.They had purchased the piano several years ago, spending far more gil than Tifa was comfortable with, but Cloud had insisted; he missed the way she used to play in Nibelheim, and Tifa had to admit she missed her favorite pastime as well. Hearing his footfalls grow nearer, Tifa dropped her hands in her lap and turned slightly to one side to glance at him.

“Hey.”

She felt the warmth of his body almost instantly as he slid on the bench beside her, scooting next to her so that his shoulder tapped hers and their arms were lined together. Turning toward him, Tifa let their eyes meet, and she saw that Cloud was offering her a very faint, friendly smile.He pitched forward a bit, his forehead bumping hers slowly as he rubbed his nose across hers.Tifa couldn’t help the smile that erupted across her face at his affection, and when his lips gently captured hers in a kiss, she couldn’t help but lean into it, sliding one hand across his lap to find his.

“How was your day?” he asked her when they finally broke apart, and Tifa found herself turning too abruptly from his piercing blue-green gaze, staring down at the piano’s keys, trying to keep him from reading too deeply into her face.The last thing that she wanted was for him to figure out how awful her day had truly been. It was bad enough he was eventually going to discover the injury that was still pressed painfully to her side. Not to mention, she would eventually have to explain the damage to the car. Cloud could make himself sick worrying about her, and it was the last thing that she wanted.She just wished for all of this to go away.

“Is something wrong?” he asked her, and she felt him tipping his head closer to hers at her side, giving her hand a little squeeze where it still sat in his lap.She looked down for a moment, inwardly sighing and trying to muster her strength and her bravado.She turned slightly to him then, instantly reeled in by the deep, oceanic blue in his eyes that was trying to search her face.

“Everything’s fine,” she lied, offering him a tiny, tired smile.“Just a long day, and a lot of work that needs to be done at the bar in Edge.Lucinda is doing her best, but I think she’s a little overwhelmed.”

Cloud continued to study her face, and Tifa felt herself at once melting and turned to stone by the intensity of his stare.Cloud had such a talent for being able to read her like a book, and for being perfectly relentless and wordless as he did so.She tried to wear a mask well, attempted to placate him with another smile, but she could tell the way the cerulean swirled in his irises that he was not completely convinced.He reached up a gloved hand to gently brush her bangs across her forehead, and Tifa found herself leaning into his hand.If he wanted to continue to protest, he decided to let it go, letting her contend instead with the look on his face.

Tifa gave his hand a squeeze and pulled back to shift the atmosphere.“Why don’t you go wash up and say hi to Aster?Dinner should be ready soon.I’ll go check on the chicken.”

Rising, Cloud gave Tifa a little nod, and she didn’t miss the way his eyes lingered on her, scanning her from top to bottom and then back up again before he left the room, leaving her with the heavy weight of his unconvinced contemplation.

* * *

Dinner was a trying affair for Tifa that night.Every move that she made was a painful reminder of the harassing gash that was torn in her side, still refusing to heal properly.As she placed the chicken on the center of the table, as she moved back and forth between the kitchen and the dining room with trays of sides and drinks, as she directed Aster to properly set the table, she felt the burning soreness creep higher and higher up her ribcage, wrapping itself around her middle as the inflammation continued to grow.It caused her to wince, and every time she walked back into the kitchen alone, she found herself standing over the sink, clutching the rim in her hands, breathing deeply to will the pain away.Clearly, the potions and salves hadn’t been sufficient in promoting enough healing to slow the injury’s strain, and Tifa knew that she would have to change the dressings again before she went to bed that night.Luckily, the dark hoodie she’d chosen to wear that night over her tee shirt and yoga pants concealed the thick padding of bandages that she’d wrapped over the wound.It was a matter of time before Cloud discovered its existence, but as of right now, it was a conversation she wasn’t ready to have.

Cloud watched her the entire time that she prepared their meal and set it out for their consumption, observed her openly as she sat down to eat, cocking his head to the side as he considered her between bitefulls of his meal.She met his stare a few times over dinner, and she would catch the corner of his eye twitch slightly as he chewed, before he turned away to ask Aster a question about her day or how things were going at school, about the sketchbook that she was filling the pages of with drawings of characters from her favorite anime. Tifa kept mostly quiet as she ate, occasionally filling in the conversation with questions to Aster or comments about the bar franchise to Cloud, but otherwise focusing her attention on carefully swallowing back her meal.The pain in her side was beginning to become blinding, and it snatched all of the flavor out of her food and laid waste to her appetite.Eventually, she set down her fork and focused on sipping her water, dedicating her attention to Aster for the remainder of dinner.

When they’d finished, Aster was excused, and after clearing her dishes, disappeared upstairs to her room again, the cat padding behind her, satisfied with the table scraps Cloud had tossed him to keep him from clawing up his leg as they ate. Feeling Cloud’s eyes falling back on her, Tifa turned away and quickly began to clear the table, keeping her eyes trained on the movements of her hands as she worked, hoping that her rigid movements wouldn’t reveal how much pain she was in.It was beginning to make her feel dizzy, and she needed to get upstairs to change the bandages and swallow back another potion before she passed out.

“Tifa.”

She was standing over the sink, watching the tap flow a stream of hot water over the dishes as she rinsed them in preparation for the dishwasher, when she heard his voice behind her.She turned, finding him standing in the doorway with his arms folded over his chest, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“Oh, Cloud.I’ll be upstairs in a second.I’m just going to finish - “

He had crossed the room so quickly, she almost missed how he made his way through the kitchen to stand beside her, his hand locked around her wrist where it hovered above the sink.Before dinner, he had showered and changed into sweats and a teeshirt, and Tifa could faintly detect the cedar and star anise of his soap and his aftershave that clung to his skin.His blue eyes were boring into her crimson orbs, radiant and bright, and Tifa felt herself grow hot suddenly, her face flushing.

“We need to talk,” he told her lowly, his gaze filtering over her face, lowering to scan her body before lifting back up to catch her eyes again, his hand pulling her wrist away from the sink.“You’ve been favoring your left side all night.Did you think I wouldn’t notice?Are you hurt?”

Tifa expelled a breath, unnerved by the way he called her out so effortlessly and efficiently, but not really surprised by it at all.She dropped her eyes to the floor, not wanting to meet his, embarrassed and ashamed by the entire situation.

“It’s fine, Cloud,” she lied again, right through her teeth.“I was attacked by a pair of drakes on the way home today on the expressway near Kalm. It’s just a minor injury.I’ve already cleaned and wrapped it.It just needs a few days to heal.”

As she was speaking, Cloud’s hand was pushing her hoodie open, his fingers curling at the hem of her teeshirt.As he was lifting it up, his eyes trained downward, Tifa’s voice was dying in her throat, and she had half a mind to pull away from him.But she was frozen in place like a statue, unable to move even a muscle as his breath fell warm across her collarbone.

“Tifa, you’ve bled right through the bandages,” Cloud’s voice was a stone, heavy and hard and unhappy, falling square on the center of her chest and knocking the wind out of her. “This needs to be redressed right away.Did you use a healing materia?”

Tifa shook her head, feeling tears beginning to prick the corners of her eyes.She felt the weight of his eyes on her, the gravity in his voice crushing her into the floorboards, and combined with her own feelings of shame and inadequacy, it became her unraveling.“No.It really isn’t that bad, Cloud.It just looks -“

“Go upstairs,” he cut her off, and Tifa looked up to see the mako rim was pulsing bright emerald green around his pupils.He was angry.Tifa did not like to see him like this, and her face flushed, feeling further mortified, she pulled her eyes away.“Forget about the dishes.”

He pulled her shirt back down, then turned and strode wordlessly out of the kitchen, leaving her alone.

Heaving a melancholic sigh, Tifa turned the tap off and stared down at her hands.Even they were beginning to show the first slight signs of age, the skin thinner and looser across her bones than she remembered.She thought back to her fight against the drakes, how uncharacteristically slow her every movement had felt as she whirled and kicked and punched, how her knuckles had protested every time she connected with scaled flesh, how the muscles in her thighs and calves refused to loosen and instead burned and twitched in protest to the exertion.Clenching her fists in front of her a few times, Tifa turned and made her way for the stairs, checking on Aster before departing for their bedroom.

Not wanting to risk getting blood on the sheets, Tifa sat at her vanity in the twilight of their room while she waited for Cloud. The entire time, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, memorizing the subtly changing lines of her face. She had never considered herself to be vain, and despite the fact that people had referred to her as being beautiful for her entire life, she tried to avoid making too much fuss of her physical appearance.Yet she wasn’t prepared for the conflict she was feeling right now, wondering if she could handle the fact that she was growing older and that her body and her looks were slowly, slightly shifting.

Cloud, on the other hand, looked almost completely the same as he had fifteen years ago.His face had matured slightly, the lines of his jaw sharpening, but otherwise he held onto much of the same boyishness she had fallen in love with so long ago. His strength and agility had not suffered any of the same withering effects of time that hers had, and Tifa knew that he was just as nimble and efficient on the battlefield as he was when they had first fought against Sephiroth all those years ago.What had stood unspoken between them as the years stretched by was how his mako and Jenova cell enhancements had left him mostly unchanged, and now, her body was just beginning to move on.

As her brain was turning over with these unnerving and dismal thoughts, the bedroom door slid open, revealing Cloud standing in the threshold with a bright green orb of healing materia in one hand and a warm, wet rag in the other, shadowed by the darkness of the hallway behind him. His eyes fell to her, still pulsing with verdant flecks, flickering against the moonlight that shone in from the window behind their bed.After a moment of considering her, Tifa found herself again being crushed under the weight behind his stare, and he crossed into the room and clicked on the lamp on her vanity before closing the door behind him.

“Take off your shirt,” he instructed her without preamble, stepping closer to her, the lamp highlighting the speckles of gold in his blonde strands.His voice was level and even, dropped several octaves lower in its tone, and the non-negotiable nature of his command stirred something warm and tremulous low in her belly.Something about that hint of annoyance that still lingered behind the edge in his voice was forbiddingly sexy, and Tifa found herself biting her bottom lip as she stared back at him where he stood, waiting only somewhat patiently for her to obey.

Moving slowly to avoid pulling too harshly at the torn flesh, Tifa carefully crossed her arms over herself and peeled her shirt over her head, pulling her long hair through the neckhole before she dropped the shirt on the vanity.Having shed her sports bra before her shower and never putting one back on because, _who wore bras in the house,_ the removal of her shirt left her breasts bare in front of him, and despite the thousands of times he had seen her this way, Tifa felt her face grow warm.She didn’t miss how his eyes dropped to her naked skin, something vivid flashing behind the deep, cool blue of his gaze.

After a moment of drinking her in, Cloud was crouching to his knees at her side where she sat in the chair, and she inhaled deeply when she felt his fingertips graze the side of her skin, pulsating warmth, just above the bandaging that was taped to her side.She heard him click his tongue across his teeth.

“Try to hold still,” he told her softly.

Tifa closed her eyes, stilling her body as she felt him gently peel the bandage away from her skin.Because the wound had opened again and her blood had leaked through, the gauze clung to the fissures in her flesh, and she winced at the smart of pain as he pulled the dressings away.Cloud looked up at her when he heard her sharp intake of breath, and he ran his fingers down the length of her side, starting above her ribs and tracing down to her hip, trailing the violent, red gash that was tearing a jagged indent into her flesh.

“This looks really bad,” Cloud’s words were soft, but laced with a steel edge, a seriousness that Tifa was familiar with - it was the tenuous limit his tone reached whenever he was worried or concerned about something.He was lifting the damp washcloth then, and she watched as he carefully pressed it against her side, wiping away the excess blood, sending a sharp ache to whittle over her skin again. Cloud used his free hand to hold her steady on the other side of her waist.“This was on the verge of being infected.You should have used the materia right away.”

Tifa said nothing, tears from the sting burning the corners of her eyes as he worked methodically but gently.After a moment, he pulled the wet warmth of the rag away and Tifa watched as he set it down on the vanity, dark red with blood.He reached for the healing materia, holding it up in front of him, and he pressed his palm lightly over the wound.

“Just one second,” he breathed.“You can close your eyes.”

Tifa did so, and a moment later, she could feel the warmth of the materia’s magic weave into her skin, pulling at the threads of tissue, carefully knitting the flesh back together.She felt the pain begin to ebb slowly away, and in the next moment, the warmth was fading, and Cloud was running his hand across her side, his fingers trailing down from her ribcage to her hip as he tested the healed flesh.

“That should take care of it,” he told her, and she opened her eyes again to glance down at him, finding him looking up at her, the blue in his eyes pulsing with that faint, familiar glow, the colors trapped between the mix of emotions that were waging a war inside of him while his exterior remained steely and calm.“There’s a slight scar, but it will disappear in a few days.” He wrapped his palm around her waist, holding her firmly in his grip, and Tifa felt a warm tingle spread through her belly again.

“T-thank you, Cloud,” she finally responded, her voice fragmenting, and she wiped at the tears that had pooled in the corners of her eyes.“That feels a lot better.”

Cloud expelled a short puff of air, still kneeling on the floor in front of her.He set the materia on the vanity, then brought his other hand up to the other side of her waist.

“You should have just used the materia in the first place,” he scolded her gently.“And why didn’t you say anything to me about it?Why did you try to hide it?”

Tifa shook her head, lowering her eyes and looking away from him, not wanting him to see how her face began to flush with embarrassment.She couldn’t face explaining any of this to him.Now, as she sat here bared open to him, everything about the last six hours seemed so silly and petty and stupid. She crossed her arms over her bare chest, turning slightly away from him.

“I just didn’t want you to worry,” she answered in a small voice. “It really didn’t seem that bad at the time.”

She let her voice trail away, still refusing to look at him, though she could feel his blue eyes burning a hot, intense glare, laser-focused, right on her face. Cloud refused to move or turn away from her, and his hand that was at her healed ribcage continued to gently caress her side as he stared at her.

Without warning, the tears began to spill, hot, sloppy, and silent, down her cheeks and onto her knuckles where her hands had suddenly come up to cradle tight against her cheeks.The emotions that had been noiselessly building up inside of her, the feelings of despair and deficiency and weakness, the sense that she was a thread that was slowly being unraveled from a greater tapestry, bubbled to the surface and spilled out as she sat there, naked from the waist up and fully vulnerable in front of her husband.Growing ever more dismayed, Tifa pinned her arms more tightly against her chest and brought her hands over her entire face, covering her eyes as her shoulders began to heave with sobs.

Alarmed, Cloud moved forward between her knees, looping both arms around her waist as he pulled her closer to him, sliding her across the chair and lowering her slightly so that their faces were at eye level with each other.

“Tifa?”His voice was thick but soft, the worry evident in the strums of his baritone.“Why are you crying?Talk to me.”

He pulled her closer again then, bumping his forehead against hers.Feeling the heat of that gentle touch, the tenderness of it radiating from her crown all the way to the soles of her feet, Tifa felt her defenses waver completely, and she pitched forward, dropping her arms from where they shielded her breasts and looped them around Cloud’s shoulders, hiding her face in his neck.

“Cloud, everything is falling apart,” she finally wept across his skin, the tears pressing to the crook of his shoulder and rolling downhill before staining his shirt.

Cloud wrapped his arms fully around her, then pulled her down from the chair, sliding to sit on the floor and cradle her in his lap, folding his legs around her.Her arms were now circling his neck, and she didn’t dare look up as she continued to cry softly against him.

At a loss for words, Cloud found himself leaning against the leg of the vanity table, rubbing his palm across Tifa’s back soothingly, pressing kisses to the top of her hair.She clutched onto him with more desperation and need, and Cloud waited silently, consoling her with his touch until she was ready to speak.

It took a long time.Inwardly, Tifa knew, especially from how tightly he was holding her where they sat crouched on that spot on the floor, that Cloud wasn’t going to move until she used her voice.They both knew how difficult words could be for them both sometimes, but they had long ago vowed that they would not ever let the other off the hook when it truly mattered, would not allow the channels of communication between them to cross or fragment.She knew that Cloud would sit there and wait for her for the rest of the night and the days and nights that followed, would wait as long as it took for her to finally open up to him.

Feeling him embrace her tight against his chest, her body enveloped in his warmth, Tifa let out a few shaky puffs of air as she exhaled deeply to calm and chase away her sobs enough that she could speak.She found her hand had come up to his teeshirt, her fingers curling around it and pulling at the cotton, stretching it out slightly.She looked down and watched as Cloud’s chest rose and fell with his slow, even breathing, feeling one hand still holding her waist by her injured side, the other rubbing patterns across her upper back.

“Cloud,” she finally breathed, the long stretch of moments that were passing by becoming far too consuming and suffocating.“I just don’t feel like things are the same anymore.Today, when I fought those drakes, I felt so unprepared and weak - like my body was no longer working the way that it used to.I just couldn’t keep up on the battlefield.There were only two of them, but it felt like there were twenty.And I realized that this is nothing new - that I haven’t been the same in a while.I haven’t fought for a long time, but I still train and workout, so I thought I would always be able to perform the same way.But I can’t.Nothing is the same anymore.”

By the time she had finished that confession, her voice had cracked and strained, and new sobs at the words that were slipping out of her mouth had crawled into her throat. She inhaled harshly to regulate the tremors that were crawling through her, then expelled a sigh, just as she felt Cloud’s hand drift away from her side to come up to the side of her face, brushing her hair away from where it had spilled into her eyes.

“And that’s not the only thing,” she found herself continuing, the words sputtering from her like the eruption of a volcano, hot and angry and dangerous.“I’m just… getting older, and I can see it everywhere I look.I can feel it.And you… Cloud, you look the same.I don’t want to leave you behind.”

She started to cry again, turning her face and pitching it downward against his clavicle where she could hide her eyes from him. She heard him inhale sharply at her words, felt his body stiffen and tighten in consternation.Seconds of silence passed between them, heavy and weighted and feeling like hours, the air above them growing cold and stiff and thick.When she felt the pressure might finally shatter into a million pieces right there in his lap with anxiety, he finally gently pulled her away from him enough that he could look into her eyes.

“Hey.Tifa,” he called quietly to her, and Tifa looked up, letting her tear-rimmed, garnet gaze fall into his deep, aquatic stare that was currently a raging blue fire, scorching its way into the depths of her soul. She blinked under its flame, and she felt Cloud’s fingertip skirting across her temple, trailing down to the lines of her jaw and her chin, gently cupping her cheek in his palm. 

“Listen to me, Tifa.You’re not weak.You’re the strongest fighter I’ve ever seen.And…” his eyes were lowering to trail her body, to drink in her bare breasts and the lines of her remaining curves that were folded in the confines of his lap, before they came back up to her face.“…You’re more beautiful than you’ve ever been.Your body is still perfect.It’s still as sexy and powerful as it was when I first laid eyes on you again back in Sector7.”

Tifa blushed at that, dipping her head against his neck as she felt a small smile tug at the corner of her lips.Still, the sadness and the doubt was a mosquito that was nagging and buzzing in the back of her brain, spurring her to keep thinking the worst.“But Cloud, you… the mako…”

Cloud had taken her chin in his hand again then, lifting her face up once more to look at him.She was seized once again by the intensity in his stare, by its blinding severity.“You’re not leaving me behind, Tifa,” he told her evenly.“Mako…yeah, it’s enhanced me.So have the Jenova cells.But I’m not invincible.It may take me a little bit longer, but I’m still moving alongside you.If anything, I’m at risk for degradation, which could actually accelerate the process.”

At that, Tifa felt the swell of panic rise up in her chest, forcing her to discard her own personal doubts and misgivings with sudden concern for him, and she sat up a little in his lap, looking up at him again.“Degradation?” she repeated wildly, her voice cracking again.

He offered her a small smile, seeing how she jumped up in terror at his words, and tightened his arms around her. “Don’t worry about it.If that was gonna happen, it would’ve already.”He pressed his forehead against hers again, swiping his nose across hers.

Tifa let her eyes close, feeling herself settling into his embrace, collapsing against him as they sank into the softness of the plush shag carpet on the floor.Cloud’s arms had settled comfortably around her, and Tifa felt herself shiver slightly against him as she took in a deep breath, trying to prevent a fresh well of tears from spilling away from her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered against his shoulder after a moment.“I know it’s silly.”

She felt Cloud tense somewhat before his body shifted, and he was leaning just slightly away from her, looking down at her face with blue eyes that swirled as they darted across her face, searching it again.“Don’t say that, Tifa.Your feelings aren’t silly.”

Tifa couldn’t help the corner of her lips turn back up into a smile, realizing that once again, somehow, he knew just what to say, despite the fact that sometimes they both struggled with words.If the years between them had taught them anything, it was that there would always be a path for them to find a way to each other, even if they stumbled and ambled brokenly like fools as they tried to traverse and cross it.

Cloud’s hands began to run up her back, crossing her shoulders and trailing the backs of her arms, his fingers digging into her flesh and testing the muscles below as they explored.She felt him shifting under her, widening his knees apart, until he was looking at her once again.

“You’re really tense, Tifa,” he told her, his voice low, a rumble that was rolling past her ear like a distant roll of thunder.“You need to relax.”Cloud was moving slowly below her, his hands taking her by the shoulders as he helped her up while he rose to his feet.When they were both standing and facing each other, Tifa began to blush under his stare, but he just considered her for a moment, cocking his head to one side.

“Why don’t you take the rest of this off and lay down?” he suggested quietly, thumbing at the waistband of her yoga pants.“I’ll make sure Aster is ready for bed, and I’ll be right back.”

He pressed a kiss to her cheek, soft but charged with static, and before she could respond, he had left her alone in the room.Tifa wrapped her arms around herself, feeling a chill run over her exposed flesh now that he was gone, and she found her eyes trailing back to her reflection in the mirror at the vanity table.Maybe she was imagining it, but with the lingering brush of his lips against her face, she thought that maybe there was a little bit more of that rosy, youthful glow shining back at her through the glass.

By the time Cloud returned, Tifa had stripped out of her yoga pants and was curled on the bed in her underwear, holding on to a pillow in front of her, her hair a dark, inky spill around her shoulders, caressing the tops of her legs where they were folded in front of her.She had turned off the light in the room, leaving it encased in darkness save for the illuminate white stream of the moonlight that poured in from the window above the bed.It cast a glowing shadow around Cloud as he entered, a radiant shimmer flowing over his golden spikes of hair where they fanned out around his face, his eyes throbbing a deep aquamarine glow into the void in front of him as he watched her wordlessly, closing the door quietly behind him.

Tifa hugged the pillow tightly to her chest, resting her chin atop its softness as she stared back at him, their eyes holding one another’s as he moved deeper into the room.A few paces toward the bed, Cloud turned away from her, pulling his teeshirt over his head and tossing it messily to the floor behind him, causing Tifa to frown just a little bit.But she was quickly distracted by the hard definition of his chest and arms and abdomen as he moved closer to the bed.

As he stood across from her, their eyes met again.The spark had leveled out in his eyes, and what she saw lying in the blue depths was warm and soft, inviting, a look that was protective and caring.He tilted his head to the side as he looked back at her, and she saw his biceps twitch, almost imperceptibly, before he was crossing his way to the side of the bed next to her, sliding one knee over the other across the mattress until he was crawling behind her and wrapping his arms around her, pulling her in close against the front of his body in his embrace before dropping his lips to her hair.

“I love you, Tifa,” he whispered against the top of her head, his voice raining a shiver across her skull and through every strand of her hair, trailing down her spine and extending warm electricity through her limbs until she was clenching her fingers against her palms and flattening the soles of her feet on the soft comforter of their bed.His fingertips, firm and calloused, were trailing a rough line up and down the flesh of her arms, raising the hairs there with static and blooming goosebumps in their wake. “You’ve always been beautiful to me, but you’re more beautiful now then you’ve ever been.There’s not a part of you I don’t love.”

Tifa expelled a tiny moan, one that escaped her lips dryly with the harsh rasp of her voice that was suddenly caught in her throat as he pressed the warmth of his body against hers, his smooth, naked chest, all hard muscles encased in warm, velvet skin searing the flesh of her back.She leaned into him, and she could feel his lips sliding over her hair, his face brushing against the back of her head as he lowered his face to the crook of her neck where he nuzzled her gently.She tipped her head back when she felt his breath wash over her collarbone as she exhaled, closed her eyes when she felt him carefully and tenderly drop a kiss to the crook of her shoulder.

“You’re beautiful, Tifa,” He repeated, his voice a decibel above a whisper, just barely detectable over the white noise of the traffic and the autumn winds outside.“But more importantly, you’re strong.Every part of you has always been strong.”

Keeping her eyes closed, Tifa let herself fall, losing herself completely in him.She felt his right hand drift away from her arm, crossing over to the front of her body, where it hovered its warmth over her breasts for a brief moment before his palm fell flat against her abdomen, pressing against the flesh of her belly into the muscles that lie beneath. 

“You’ve always had the tightest abs,” he whispered against her neck, his lips just barely touching her flesh as he hummed low in his throat, a sound that suggested he was pleased with the way he was able to touch her, with what his hands were discovering under their explorations.“I’ve always loved how firm and hard you’ve kept your core… how it would help you to do such amazing acrobatics in the middle of battle.When I came back to Nibelheim that day… and you were wearing that outfit… it was the first thing I noticed.”

The memory of that silly outfit that she’d worn in hopes of seeing him assailed her, and with a blush, Tifa trembled under his hand. His palm remained there, while his left hand was suddenly squeezing her left arm, first her bicep and then her forearm.“And your arms… how toned and tough you keep them.Always up and ready to attack and defend.Whenever you were by my side in battle, Tifa, I never had to worry or watch my back.I always knew these arms were there, powerful and strong.They still are.”

Still holding her waist with his right hand, his left lowered further to circle her wrist, finding the smooth skin there pulled lean against her bones.When he brushed across her pulse point, Tifa felt a spark rise somewhere deep inside of her, plunged far below where his other hand pushed against the taut muscles of her abdomen that were covered by the slight, fleshy paunch of her belly.His hand was then snaking its way to the top of her hand, fingers stirring something warm and electric under her skin as they drew long lines over her knuckles until his hand was completely covering hers, and then he was hooking each of his long, graceful fingers under hers, extending them until they interlocked and hers were stretched out and splayed in the crosshairs of his. 

“These hands…” his voice was trailing off into the darkness, disappearing somewhere between the moonlit darkness above them and the threads of her hair.“These hands are the most powerful weapons I’ve ever seen.They can bring down any enemy, from slum fiends to governments.”

Tifa found herself smiling, rocking back against him as he tightened his grip across her fingers, squeezing their hands together.Without realizing it, she was squeezing his hand back, displaying her strength and her power against his knuckles and the connecting bones in his hand.She heard him intake a sharp breath by her ear when she clasped him, felt his nose drop even deeper against her skin, nuzzling her clavicle, digging soft little indents into her flesh there as he adorned her with gentle but needful affection.

As Tifa was sighing into his admiration, he was suddenly moving around her, pulling his hands away from where he was holding her hand and her waist, and flipped her to the center of the bed, positioning his body atop hers, between her legs.He took the pillow she had been clutching and placed it behind her head before stopping his movements altogether and letting his eyes drink in a long trail over her entire body, starting with her eyes until they swept all the way to her feet.As they came back up to her face, bright and blazing a calm, hazy, deep royal blue,Tifa watched with her bottom lip trapped between her teeth as he slowly dropped one hand to find an ankle, circling it and sending sunbeams up her flesh.

“But your legs, Tifa…” she stared up at him in stunned amazement as she saw his features slide into a look of pure, lustful reverence, as if the very thought, the very image of these parts of her body were sending him toward the edge.His grip on her ankle firming, he was slowly bringing her leg up in front of him, bending it at the knee and lifting it until her ankle could rest on his shoulder.“…Your legs have always done things to me.Look at them.They’re so long, so toned and shapely… and smooth.You have the most powerful legs I’ve ever seen.I’ve seen the way you can cut an enemy down with them without a second thought, in an instant.I’ve felt the way you lock them so tight around me when I’m buried inside of you.It’s the best feeling in the world to be wrapped between your legs.”

Tifa couldn’t stop the moan that spilled from her lips, nor did she miss the fact that it sounded almost like a sob.It wasn’t lost on her the way her body began to seize and shudder when she felt his hand on the inside of her thigh where it was suspended in the air above her, rubbing a long, warm stripe into her flesh.

As if motivated by his own words, she watched breathlessly as Cloud lowered himself to lay on top of her, and she circled her legs around his hips just the way that he had described.His face was hovering inches above hers, and Tifa found herself suddenly pitching forward into the murky blue depths that were the pools of his eyes, consumed by a gentle, quietly raging storm of desire that lay there.He thrust his hips forward then, and she felt the stiffness of his length press against her center, which was growing warm and slick from the conflicting sensations of his feathery touches and heavily weighted sentiments.As her legs tightened around him even further, he dropped his lips to hers and pulled her in for a long, languid, sensual kiss, one that covered her mouth fully but didn’t pull at her too hungrily, one that gently explored the scorching confines of her mouth and prodded at her tongue but wasn’t too forceful or aggressive.It was slow but urgent, tender but passionate, seeking but claiming all at once.The discordance of it had her unraveling, had her dragging her fingers into his hair and bucking her hips up against his, damning the layers of fabric that lived between them. It left her yearning.

After a long, hazy moment of mindless kissing that left her feeling as if she were swimming in some nebulous, otherworldly plane of existence that was filled with the scents of his aftershave and the faint mako undertones that still, decades later, clung to his blood, Tifa found him pulling away from her, and as her fingers slid out of his hair as he rose up above her, she felt herself panicking at the loss of contact, wanting desperately to remain close to him, to have their bodies connected so that he could continue to provide her with all of the warmth and adoration and reassurance and loving she so desperately needed.But he was wiping the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, staring down at her longingly, his eyes blazing a hot blue trail as they danced over her, causing her stomach to flip and clench.

“Cloud…?” she heard herself whispering, her voice splintering as their eyes met, holding one another, his relentless like the crash of the sea against the shore and hers a fiery bloodlust that had just been reignited, the flame crimson and red.He didn’t respond to her, but she saw him slowly lift one hand to the waistband of her panties, were he toyed with the elastic for a moment with his thumb and forefinger, causing her flesh above to coil and tremor against his touch.

Cloud was watching her intently, his fingers lit torches against her skin.He had paused so long to regard her, wanting her to know that he was admiring her with the sharp focus of his stare, with the weight he threw behind it, that Tifa felt herself beginning to come apart at the seams from his eyes alone. His free hand trailed her left thigh again, stirring a fiery whirlwind deep in her belly that had heat racing down to her core, igniting a spark that left her feeling a thick slip of wetness escape from between where the outer folds of her pussy were flush against the cotton of her underwear.Cloud was smirking at her suddenly as if he knew what was happening inside of her, and she felt his fingers slowly, finally curl under the hem of her waistband as if he was preparing to slide the fabric away, finally freeing her desire to fully expect and embrace his touch.Instead, she found herself jumping suddenly at the thunderclap of his voice when he spoke once again.

“Tifa,” he coaxed her name so softly, but so deeply, the vibrations rolled through his hand and filtered over her skin, plunging inside of her and thrumming all the way up to her heart, where they latched on to every ventricle and echoed, syncing with her heartbeat and nearly pulling it out of her chest.“Do you remember what I told you when we first came back to Midgar after Meteorfall?When we were with Barret?”

With the sudden shift in conversation and atmosphere, Tifa was now holding her arms shyly in front of her, and at his words, she pressed her chin atop her hands, dropping her eyes slightly, a warm blush creeping up over her cheeks. _Of course_ , she remembered what he had said to her.She would never forget his words, nor would she forget the reticent but serious manner in which he said them, the cobalt in his eyes swirling under the fading sunset of the sky above Midgar, no longer blemished by the ugly red and pink Meteor that was in the sky.Yet, she wanted to hear him say them again.She needed to hear him say them again and again and again, she realized.

“Cloud, I…” was all she managed in response, her eyelids dropping closed, her lashes fluttering ebony spools of thread against her pale, alabaster flesh.

Cloud watched her for a moment, staring at the sloping perfection of her face, raptured by the gentle blush that had tinged her smooth cheeks a delectable shade of pink, sending his own heart into a scattered, violent tempo.He pulled his hand away from her leg to join the other at the waistband of her panties, and slowly, he pulled the fabric away from her hips.

Tifa heard herself let out a small, involuntary gasp when he moved, feeling her hips lift to assist him with dispatching the fabric.She felt him pull it over her legs, and she opened her eyes to a half-lidded state when she felt him shift slightly on the bed, finding him sliding out of his sweats and shorts, revealing his erection, so stiff it was bright pink at the tip from strain, dripping precum in a slow trail over its crown.Her breath stilled, locking her entire ribcage in place as he crawled over her, the heat of his body, lean and hard and smooth, settling between her legs and sheltering in place over her, shielding her from the world as he pushed her thighs back and then caged her head between his arms, his forearms falling into the cascade of her hair that fanned around her like a spill of tar across the sheets. He lowered his face until it was inches from hers, the sapphire of his eyes shining like polished blue steel at her under the enveloping husk of his desire.

She could feel his erection pressed firmly between her thigh and the outer folds of her pussy, aching to be touched, to be caressed by him and then filled whole, completed.Desperate, she arched her back to encourage him, raising her hips against his; her lungs still hadn’t inhaled air and her chest remained frozen and still, waiting for him to carry her up to the first peak.

“I told you,” Cloud’s voice was a gravely collapse, a sonorous crash against her skin, gracing her cheek with its rumbles before he lowered his face to press a warm, steady kiss to the corner of her mouth.“… that you were strong.”He kissed her mouth fully now, not parting his lips but instead indulging himself in the softness of her skin against his.“And that if you ever forgot how to be strong…”

Cloud slid his right hand between where their bodies were pressed together, finding her heat warm against him, desolate with longing as she had begun to writhe against him, and Tifa slammed her eyes shut again, unable to stare into his eyes any longer when she felt his fingers slide over her pussy, cupping it gently and tenderly before two of his fingers slid between her folds, finding a reservoir of her leaking wetness where it had pooled beneath her trapped flesh.Tifa let out a moan as he ran his fingers through the damp heat before he dipped them inside of her, burrowing into her enveloping warmth and curling upwards to push against an electrified spot deep inside of her as he lifted his thumb to brush against her clit.She couldn’t stop the moan that spilled from her lips when she felt him apply gentle pressure to both points of contact, his hand moving languidly and slowly against her body as his fingers worked her into a frenetic current of energy.

Tifa felt his breath cascade over her ear as he pumped and massaged her deep, feeling her insides tighten and stretch taut, causing her to seize up as the first waves of sweet pleasure began to double back into her brain, lighting her synapses with a burst of dazzling neon as she felt him pull her deeper and deeper into the abyss, his lips hovering by her ear.Just as she was close to breaking, she felt him pull his hand slowly away, causing her to level out and gasp, left suspended over the center of the bridge.

“…If you ever forgot, I’d be there to remind you,” he whispered, finally finishing his sentence, just as she felt him slide the entire length of his erection inside of her in one long, fluid stroke.Tifa let out a wild, unprecedented, wanton cry of his name as he filled her, stretching her in delicious ways as her legs clasped impossibly tighter around his waist.He went still for a moment, resting himself to the hilt, comfortably inside of her, and then he brushed his lips in a slow trail from her ear, down the slope of her jaw, and then up to her lips, where he pressed another sweet kiss, parting her lips just enough to ghost his tongue into her mouth, tasting hers where it lay hot and ready to dance with his.Both of her hands were in his hair now, fingers threading and twirling through the wisps of his soft, yellow hair, her mind sinking away somewhere blue and hazy as she felt herself fade away into the sensations of being complete with him.

It was as if time had stopped, as if it no longer had any bearing on the physical world or the reality that was shaped around her.All that Tifa knew then was Cloud - the scent of his shampoo and his aftershave that melded with the vanilla and honeysuckle in her skin, the hard weight of his body, pleasingly heavy and warm on top of her, one hand slipping between them to rub her clit gently and teasingly, his other arm high above her head, keeping her caged beneath him, his fingers threading through her hair and digging into her skull.It was the feathery touch of his nose against her cheek or the side of her neck when he nuzzled her, or the hot, firm coercion of his tongue against her teeth. It was the stretch of him inside her as he pressed his hips against hers, throbbing in even deeper as she clenched around his pulsing length, despite the fact that he was largely still and refused to pump into her yet.

She was drowning in him.

After an eternity of him kissing and caressing her, keeping her teetering on the edge but not moving forward enough to cross over, Tifa sighed his name into his ear, a desperate plea for more. Cloud chuckled low in his throat, a deep rumble that vibrated through his chest and beamed into hers, sending her heart fluttering with a scatter in every direction as it beat faster and more wildly.His hand that was above her head dropped briefly to find her own where it was tangled in his hair, and he threaded his fingers with hers, gripping her hand in his in a tight grip before he pinned it above her head.He dropped his lips to hers again to kiss her deeply, trapping her upper lip between his in a rough suck before he pulled away to look deeply into her eyes, a torrential storm of swirling cobalt and zaffre.His fingers still grazing her clit with lassitude, Cloud finally began to move slowly inside of her, his hips dragging long, grinding strokes, pulling his cock out almost to the tip before falling back inside of her fully, forcefully sinking against her most sensitive spot.His eyes were still on her face, but Tifa didn’t care as she closed hers and let herself succumb completely to him.

As Cloud moved inside of her, squeezing her hand until she thought her knuckles might snap, his sweet excavation against the back of her walls and the swiveling pressure against her clit was sending her into a tailspin, whirling her through a vortex as her body began to climb higher and higher, even though physically she lay prone and pinned under him.Her entire body began to contract like a tightrope, the coil building hot and steady in the pit of her belly, a flame that was being fed fresh oxygen over and over.Sensing her tense with desperation beneath him, Cloud began to move faster, his rhythm building into a rough, steady pace above her, his hips slamming into hers with forceful wet slaps, his own breath becoming ragged and uneven and gasping as he strove to drive her towards her release.

Tifa felt it snap her in half like a twig, a sudden break in reality as if she had crashed face-first into a wall. It burst her into a thousand tiny shards, all of them twinkling in the moonlight above their bed as she floated away around him with a forlorn wail of ecstasy, one hand pulling golden strands of hair right out of his scalp, the other fighting back against the strength of his grip on hers as they squeezed each other through the paramount, him spilling himself hot and free inside of her.Tears were smarting the corners of her eyes when Cloud pulled his fingers away from the slick circles he was drawing over her aching nub, when he slowed his hips to a grinding halt.

Her orgasm was so mind-blowingly intense that she had lost her sense of hearing and was dumbfounded to realize Cloud was still moaning his way through his own release, still emptying himself into her, his forehead a sweaty, dead weight in the crook of her shoulder.Her own voice was still dying in her throat, somehow still gasping his name in bursts as she struggled for air.The haze and the confusion of the euphoria they had constructed obscured all of her senses; she felt like she was spinning, the walls and ceiling about to crash in on her and swallow her whole.

Long moments passed as they fell silent, clinging to each other, their heavy breathing and pants dying away into even and peaceful respiration.Tifa’s hand was beginning to throb where it was locked with Cloud’s, but she was almost afraid to let go, afraid that if she did anything to breach this moment, she might forever lose its magic that had left her feeling like all of the worries and ugly thoughts her inner voice had earlier conjured and plagued her with might forever be forgotten, allowing all of that horror to come back to consume her.

She shoved her thoughts as far aside as she could muster and instead let herself fall back in her embrace with Cloud, let herself revel in the feel of him still lying atop her, still inside of her and still tangled completely with her body as he worked to collect himself.As if sensing her thoughts, Cloud shifted slightly and rolled to his side, finally unlocking their hands as he pulled her with him, folding her in his embrace.Both hands now free,Tifa wrapped her arms around his neck and nuzzled herself flush against him, relishing the warmth of his body and the security that his arms provided her.She felt him reach over her and fish for the covers in the darkness, finding them and pulling them up over them both, until she felt ensconced in the soft warmth of the downy sheets and the protective heat of the hard smoothness of the man she had married and given her life to.

She was falling into a contented, misty form of sleep, warm and fuzzy against him, when she felt his head dip down towards hers again, his nose brushing the side of hers, his cheek pressed delicately against hers, tender and sweet and enough to send her melting into a puddle against him as she raked her fingers through his hair and he wrapped one hand possessively around the back of her neck.

“I love you, Teef,” he whispered into the darkness, his breath sending shivers through her skin that cascaded through her entire body.“I’ll always be here to remind you.”

Tifa had to fight to reclaim her voice, and it was husky and dry when she finally found it, the words coming out almost in a strangled sob.

“I love you, Cloud.”

Tifa was asleep as soon as the words left her lips, Cloud still nuzzling her face with his.

It was only when morning came that her demons would rise and resurface, ugly and loud alongside the morning’s first bright rays of sunshine, casting new doubts on every step forward that she tried to take.


	2. You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter takes its title from The Offspring song, You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.

The Comeback Kid

——————

Chapter Two

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2022 | September 24th

It was raining early Friday morning, the overcast clouds blunting the sunrise and coloring the sky a deep, murky shade of steel blue-gray.Tifa was sitting at the island in her kitchen, her hands wrapped around a hot mug of coffee as she stared out of the window, watching the rain fall in slats against the glass, the hazy colors casting shadows over the room.The gentle drumming of the precipitation was the only sound Tifa could hear at this early hour, aside from the occasional whirl of tires across the wet road outside when a car drove by.The dim, tranquil atmosphere left her with only her own thoughts floating through her mind, loud and unkempt, watching the steam rise from her mug.

It had been three days since the drake attack, three days since Tifa had broken down in Cloud’s arms and let him do his level best to piece her back together.Every time she thought about that night, she drifted back to the moments they had shared, to the desperate and tender lovemaking that had accompanied his sweet reassurances.He had sent her into a blissful reprieve, but when Tifa woke the next morning, the moment had passed, and reality had settled back in, reminding her of all of her troubles and nagging doubts.

For the rest of the week, Tifa refused to travel, canceling her visits to Kalm and Midgar where she had been planning to visit the local Seventh Heaven franchises.This had been a risky decision to make, as Johnny was currently running the franchise in Midgar, and he was the type of person who required frequent monitoring.But she couldn’t bring herself to leave Junon that week, and found herself spending almost all of her time the last few days working from home or stopping into the Seventh Heaven in Junon to work alongside her team there. 

Even though she had gone into the bar and sat at her laptop, pouring over spreadsheets of sales figures that had come in from Seventh Heaven’s three other locations, she found the work was piling up.Bills and notices sat unopened on her desk in the corner of the small workspace she shared with Cloud behind the kitchen on the first floor. Emails went unanswered in her inbox, prompting her with nagging notices of **Received three days ago.Reply now?** Voicemails from Johnny and Lucinda, her most inexperienced and needy franchise managers, cluttered her PHS’ inbox, the tiny red icon glaring up at her worryingly.Even text messages were beginning to give her anxiety.

Tifa had to admit to herself that despite the words Cloud had rained on her that night as he sheltered her beneath his touch, despite the way his blue eyes flickered and glowed as they stared down at her in reverence and awe, despite the way the tips of his fingers and the feathers of his lips skirted across her flesh in adoration and need, her mind had not left the headspace of the drake attack on the plains outside of Kalm.The muscles in her thighs and the backs of her arms still felt stiff and dense. She could still hear the creak in her bones.Her lower back still hurt.

All of it was producing feelings of anger and rage inside of Tifa that were unfamiliar, toxic and hot, bubbling to the surface of her throat like the sulfuric and suffocating smoke rising from flame and ash.It was not like the kinds of anger she’d felt in the past - anger at fate and circumstance, anger at despotic conglomerates and depraved mad scientists and corrupted megalomaniacs - in fact, it was not even like the kind of anger she had once harbored toward herself over her own guilt and poorly conceived choices.No, this anger was new - and while it was also self-directed, it was a tragic blend of fury of a different sort of fate, the sort that she knew she could not stop nor prevent, and she feared that it would not only tear her further away from herself, but from the ones she loved.

Her feelings were distracting. For the rest of that week, she had to put on her boldest face to keep up with her family.Although Aster was quiet, she was perceptive and prone to her own bits of anxiety, and Tifa was careful to put a brave face up lest her daughter start worrying that something was wrong. It was a tightrope that she had to balance on carefully. Ever since Marlene had moved out, there was less to keep Aster distracted, and although the ten-year-old easily fell into her own interests, she was incredibly close to her parents.More than once that week, she had asked Tifa if she was okay, prompting Tifa to put on her brightest smile as she hugged Aster to reassure her.

Cloud was another matter entirely.While he didn’t have Aster’s natural talents for perspicacity - he could be rather dense and unaware at times when it came to others’ feelings, in fact - he was attuned to Tifa and knew her better than he knew the inside of his own heart.He didn’t push her by asking too many questions, but she could tell by the way he swept her passionately into their bed every night that week, the way he dragged his lips across every patch of her skin he could reach, the way he bent and twisted her legs in every direction to find new angles as he drove into her, made her fully aware that he knew her mind was elsewhere, somewhere dark and unrelenting, and he was trying to heal her.

As her thoughts turned to Cloud, a gentle, rueful smile tugged at the corner of her lips, and she found herself appreciating his methods, even though her own thoughts and feelings remained ugly and black. Tifa’s fingers were absorbing the heat of her coffee, and she pulled the ceramic up to her lips to sip it, watching the skyline remain mostly dark even though the morning wore on past dawn, the rainclouds blocking the sun.

“Hey, Teef.”

Blinking, Tifa turned around at the sound of his voice, wondering if she was sometimes summoning him with her thoughts the way he would appear like this.She turned away from the window, swiveling on the barstool where she sat at the island to face him where he stood in the doorway, a river of darkness in the hallway flowing behind him.He was still wearing his sweats, though he’d pulled his teeshirt back on, wrinkled and disheveled from laying on the floor all night after he’d tossed it.His hair was rumpled and mussed; it was evident he’d just rolled out of bed.It was an uncharacteristic sight, considering that Tifa was familiar with his routine.Cloud was always usually showered and dressed before he came downstairs, quick to scarf down breakfast before hitting the road for work for the day.

“Good morning,” she greeted him softly, offering him her most placating smile.“Why aren’t you dressed?Are you leaving later today?”

Cloud smirked at her, crossing into the kitchen.He glanced over at the counter, spotting the coffee pot, fresh and hot where she’d brewed it earlier. He was holding his PHS in one hand. She watched him run his fingers through his hair, mussing his flaxen strands even further, before he set the PHS on the island and went to the counter to pour himself coffee.

“I’m staying home today.”

Tifa quirked an eyebrow, leaning further over the island over her coffee.This was new.Cloud’s only day off during the week was typically Sundays, occasionally Saturdays if they made plans as a family.But he never took off during the week.

“Really?” she inquired, bringing her mug to her lips for another quick sip.“Do you have something else planned for today? Working on your bike?”

Cloud replaced the coffee pot and turned around, carrying his steaming mug over to the island.He picked up his PHS before he slid into the chair beside her.Up close, she could see that sleep still lingered in his eyes, lulling his irises to a deep, darkened shade of baby blue, soft and tranquil.He leaned in and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth before retreating, and Tifa could just barely taste his toothpaste.

“Nah,” came his response, just as he leaned forward to blow at the steam hovering above his mug. “I thought I’d spend the day with you.”

Tifa felt the tops of her cheeks grow a little warm at his words, felt the blush rise and glow.She caught the mischievous glint that sparkled in his eyes as he turned away and sipped carefully at his coffee, and she wondered if he had seriously taken the day off from work so he could spend it working her into a frenzy the way he had been every night for that entire week.

“I -“

“We could go back to bed,” he spoke again, cutting her off after he swallowed back his first sip of caffeine.

Tifa let out a tiny huff, feeling the warmth in her cheeks begin to travel downward.She glanced up at the wall clock above the refrigerator.“It’s after six.I’ve got to fix breakfast and get Aster to school, Cloud.”

“We have time,” he rebutted, simpering at her through one side of his mouth, bringing his mug back to his lips.

Tifa stared at him, mouth agape for a moment, before she clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and started to rise from her seat, off to prepare breakfast before Aster rose and came down to eat.As much as she wanted to lay about and play under the sheets all day with Cloud, her responsibilities did not simply grind to a halt at his every whim.

“Wait,” Cloud stopped her, circling his hand around her wrist, pulling her back toward where he sat at the island.

Tifa felt her heart thundering in her chest when her eyes fell to his, recognizing the soft liquefication of his deep blue irises.What was he thinking?There was too much tenderness in his stare, too much consideration and concern but also need.As his head tilted slightly to one side, his grip on her wrist tightening, she wondered idly if he was planning to try and take her right here in this very kitchen.That could turn out very badly if they were not careful.

“That’s not why I took the day off,” Cloud finally admitted, running his thumb against the back of her wrist, caressing the vein that was trapped under the skin there and sending a jolt of warmth up her arm and straight into the center of her heart. “I - well, I was thinking about something.You wanna sit back down for a minute?”

Tifa’s eyebrows were raised again, intrigued but also very suspicious. Cloud was usually pretty simple and easy enough to decipher, and by this point, she’d mostly figured out how to read him. Yet he somehow managed to occasionally be full of surprises, and now was one of those moments.She started to part her lips to protest, but in the end she gave up, sitting back on her stool and facing him fully.

He offered her a small but triumphant smile, then released her wrist and reached for his PHS.Tifa watched his face as it became illuminated in its glow as he scrolled through it with his thumb, the cool light filtering his pale, boyish features in blue and white.The room was still dark with the dismal weather outside, and under the contrast of the device’s glow, Tifa could see every pallid dusting of freckle across his cheeks, as if magnified under a blacklight.

After a moment, he turned the PHS in her direction and held it out for her to take.He was looking at her expectantly, and so Tifa took the PHS in her palm and stared down at the image on the screen.

It was a jarring, black and white flyer capped with the words _Midgar Fight Club: Spring World Championship_ across the top, the image of a boxing ring illuminated in spotlights centered below the text. Tifa quickly scanned the finer text at the bottom, which listed off an address in Sector3 of Midgar along with some important dates and information.Her brow furled slightly as she read, before she looked up at Cloud to find him watching her.

“What is this?” she asked him carefully, placing his PHS back on the island.

Cloud took his device back and thumbed over the image.“MFC is the largest mixed martial arts association on this continent,” Cloud explained quietly.“They are opening this year’s World Championship to new and amateur fighters.”

“I’m not an amateur,” Tifa interjected, far too defensively.

Cloud sighed patiently.“That’s not what I - it just means - listen, have you ever competed before?”

Tifa glanced at the PHS in his hand, something pinpricking the back of her mind.She felt her anxiety beginning to rise inside of her, a feeling that was frenetic and hot.Why was she reacting so severely to this?And why was he bringing this up?

“No,” she finally responded.“At least, not aside from other students of Master Zangan.”

Cloud nodded.“They’re opening up the rankings to new fighters.I just thought -“She watched as Cloud looked down at the PHS, fidgeting slightly as he considered his next words. He finally looked back up at her, and his eyes were bright, glowing in the nebulous darkness of the stormy dawn that was rising outside under the cover of rain.“I - sometimes a challenge is the best way to get out of a rut.You’ve been moping around all week since you got hurt, and I can’t take it anymore.I thought maybe you’d feel better if you… had something to strive for.You know… like, a goal.”

Cloud suddenly looked sheepish, Tifa realized, a faint blush creeping up his cheeks that were glowing pink almost as brightly as the blue in his eyes.He turned back to his coffee, dropping the PHS on the counter and bringing the mug to his lips as he stared absently across the room at the stove. 

Tifa’s mouth fell open, and she stared at his profile as he sipped.She could see the tips of his ears turning red, and suddenly her own face was flushing.

It was an incredibly thoughtful thing to suggest, Tifa realized as she reached forward to slide his PHS back towards her, bringing life to the backlight again.She scanned the information on the flyer, and noticed that today’s date was the first on the flyer to sign up to participate in the rankings.

She turned to Cloud, pushing the PHS back to him, her lips turning up into a smile.He seemed to sense it, because he turned to her, the stars in his eyes sparkling at her.

“I hadn’t thought about that, Cloud…” she began, and he slowly slid a hand across the granite surface of the island to find hers where it hovered by her cup of coffee.She watched as his hand fell atop hers, his fingers gently threading through hers and then bending to a clasp, wrapping their sinuous length to greet the underside of her palm with a quivering tickle. “I… competing at my age..?”

Cloud blanched at her, rolling his eyes in an almost dramatic fashion.“Stop acting like you’re old, Tifa.There are arena fighters who are competing well into their fifties.”

Tifa bit her bottom lip, looking down at where their hands were folded together on the shimmery stone surface of the island’s countertop.The skin across the top of his hand was thin but supple, stretched taut like silk over his bones and veins that shone blue-green through the diaphanous layers of tissue.For someone who fought almost exclusively with a sword, the tops of his hands were smooth, soft and unblemished, almost delicate enough to model rings in a magazine. It was the undersides of his hands and the pads of his fingertips that were rough and weathered from combat, and Tifa felt the warm sandpaper of his palm grate gently against the top of her own hand, felt his long fingers curl and scrape at her calloused palm.She let her fingers tangle more tightly with his where they were interlocked.

“I was thinking we could check it out today… see if it’s something you were interested in trying,” Cloud suggested softly, pressing the tips of his fingers into her palm with a slight, teasing pressure.

Tifa looked up again and found her eyes meeting his, locating the soft expectancy and hopefulness that lay in the gentle wave pools of zaffre that swirled around his pupil, lighting her world even as the rain blunted the room with its dark, puffy storm clouds.She couldn’t keep herself from smiling back at him, nodding slightly.

Was this something that she dared to do?She thought about the image of the ring on the flyer, lit up in the warm yellow glow of the spotlight that shone overhead, highlighting the spectator glory and the satisfaction of the match.Fighting for sport had never been the reason that Tifa had become a martial artist.It had never been the reason she had trained for thousands of hours under one of the most renowned and challenging sensei in the world.It was not the reason that Tifa worked herself to the bone throughout most of her life to keep her body in pinnacle combat shape, despite the fact she was beginning to lose her grasp of control over that condition more recently.

No.She’d learned to fight to survive.To stave off the personal feelings of inadequacy and failure that besieged her after she fell from a mountain’s cliff and nearly died, leaving her unresponsive for an entire week. To ensure that she’d never once again find herself in the position of needing another to rely on, or to know that she might not make it through the hands that life might deal her next.It was only as she grew older, as the years quickly crept by did she realize - watching Nibelheim burn, crawling her way through a meager existence in the slums, dedicating every fabric of her being to building a new life, watching that life get smashed to pieces again, friends dying and the world nearly ending and the love of her life leaving her to die before returning in the whirlwind of a fresh crisis - did she realize how her choices to become a paragon of combat had always been about survival.It was never about glory or self-satisfaction or proving herself under the shine of limelight.

Now, though, Tifa thought as she sat under his cool, considering gaze, thinking about the ring, about the thrill of battling against an opponent who was equal to her in her skill and whom she could seek triumph over, it dawned on her that this might be a different type of thrill than the ones she would find against monsters or ill-intentioned enemies.This was a different sort of survival, and it was one she needed now if she was going to repair the cracks that were breaking free, tiny but loud, across the surface of her soul.

“I guess it can’t hurt,” Tifa finally conceded to him, and Cloud’s smirk widened into a smile, the blue and green dancing in his eyes before he leaned in and pressed his lips to hers in a soft kiss, swiping her palm with his fingers again before he slid his hand away.

“Good.We can take a trip to Midgar after we drop Aster off at school.”He tapped his PHS to ignite its screen, making note of the time on the display.“We still have time to go back to bed.”

Tifa was already shaking her head when she saw the devious grin appear on his face.“No, I’ve got to start breakfast for - “

“We have time,” he repeated, and almost magically, Cloud had swiftly risen and moved toward her, scooping her off of the barstool by hooking his arms under her thighs, pulling her away and carrying her upstairs as she protested a yelp, just as the rain hit heavier against the windows and a fresh clap of thunder rolled through the early morning sky.

——————

In the end, Tifa and Cloud had stayed in bed a little too long, kissing and pawing each other under the sheets until they’d heard Aster’s soft footsteps pad their way into the bathroom down the hall.After glancing at the time, Tifa’d heaved a massive sigh before punching Cloud in the arm and leaping out of bed. While Cloud and Aster sat at the kitchen island inhaling the scrambled eggs and whole-wheat toast she’d quickly thrown together, Tifa sent a few hasty text messages to her franchise managers to let them know that she was taking the day off, before taking a moment to shower and quickly dress for the day.

It was still raining, the sky still a dismal navy blue, and they took Tifa’s damaged sedan to drop Aster off at school.Having Cloud home on a weekday proved to be a massive distraction, and Aster had been unusually animated as a result, begging to stay home from school so that she could spend the day with both of her parents.Tifa expressly forbade it, but Cloud had promised that they could spend time watching movies together when she got home from school, and this seemed to be enough to happily placate her.

After she was dropped off, Tifa sat with her hands gripping the steering wheel, watching from the curb as Aster ran through the rain with her the hood of her jacket pulled over her head toward the schoolhouse. Once Aster had disappeared inside, Tifa squeezed the wheel and turned to Cloud, who was leaned back in the passenger seat, also staring out of the window to make sure that Aster had made it safely inside.When the door shut, he turned and met Tifa’s eyes.

“Ready?”

Tifa swallowed, nodding carefully.Inwardly,she was having doubts.For as long as she’d trained to be the very best at her craft, she had never thought of competing in any serious fashion against other fighters for sport. It was a foreign concept to her, even though she was well aware that people did it both legitimately and in underground coliseums all over the planet.It wasn’t a bad way to make money, she knew, but that was only if one was committed to it full time with a trainer and a promoter.It just never seemed practical to Tifa, despite her skill, when there had always been more reliable and less physically taxing ways to earn a living.

But here she was, considering it for the simple sake of proving to herself that she wasn’t as broken and hackneyed as she was beginning to feel.

She gave Cloud a small nod as she put the car into drive and pulled away from the curb, tires squealing against the rainwater on the asphalt, her heart beginning to raise its tempo inside of the cavity of her chest.

The drive along the expressway to Midgar from Junon was almost two hours, and it was a quiet drive for Cloud and Tifa as they made their way through the roadway tunnel that had been erected near the Myrthril Mines, as they passed the nearly dried-up Zolom swamp, as they zipped beyond the large green highway sign that announced the exits to Kalm and Edge.The rain began to let up the further east they drove, until it completely stopped outside of Kalm.

Tifa was used to driving these roads on an almost weekly basis as she visited the Seventh Heaven franchises.She’d opened the first one in Kalm just over eight years ago with the assistance of a large loan from Reeve Tuesti. She came to later learn this loan was largely funded by gil that was invested directly from Rufus Shinra, who funneled much of his capital ventures through the WRO to keep his name out of headlines.Tifa had blanched slightly when she’d learned this information from Reeve, but Rufus’ name did not appear on any official paperwork, and so she’d brushed it off, even as the years wore on and more money poured in, offering opportunities for expansion.Still, she never bothered to tell Cloud that Rufus’ gil had been the true source of Seventh Heaven’s growth, knowing he would not like it one bit.

It had taken Tifa almost two years to write her business plan and develop a marketing strategy for the expansion of the bar that had once been a front for eco-terrorist operations in Sector7, but the payoff had been worth it when the new locations in Kalm, Edge, Midgar, and finally Junon all were opened.Tifa quickly realized her innate business savvy, and was impressed with the way she could devise an appealing marketing plan that soon turned Seventh Heaven into a household name of good food and drink across the Eastern Continent.She was proud of her ability to hire and manage franchisees and staff in multiple locations.She’d always been good with the books and keeping up with the day-to-day facets of running a business, but this was an entirely different sort of enterprise, and over the course of nearly the last decade, she’d excelled.

She’d grown so attached to running her business and taking care of her family that she’d neglected other parts of herself, Tifa thought bitterly as she drove past the exit to Kalm, her eyes skirting past the section of highway where she’d been ambushed by drakes earlier that week.

The silence in the car wore on as they drove closer to Midgar, creeping into the stretch of expressway that cut through the Wastelands, the borderlands of the city that had decades ago been sucked of any flora or life from Midgar’s use mako that drained even the miles of soil surrounding the city of its natural minerals and biological qualities. Cloud and Tifa only ever returned to Midgar for business.Ever since Meteorfall, their memories of the metropolis were too painful to warrant revisiting by entertaining leisure trips into the city, even after the city began to rebuild by largely abandoning the slums under new governance of Reeve and the WRO. Tifa only found herself visiting the city to check on Johnny at the Seventh Heaven he ran in the modestly rebuilt Sector7, and Cloud would only stop in the city to visit his distributors, since he rarely personally made deliveries anymore.Mostly, he stayed away from Midgar and everything it was associated with unless he absolutely had to conduct business here. 

Considering how much Cloud hated this city, it made his proposal to visit the boxing club even more thoughtful, Tifa realized as she picked up the freeway toward Sector3.

With the slums abandoned, Midgar’s new interface consisted of modern, interconnected freeway systems that bridged the repaired infrastructure of Midgar’s Topside plates and provided seamless travel between each Sector, as well as to the expressways that led in and out of the city.It had been an ambitious project that took years and cost billions of gil to accomplish, but it quickly became apparent after Meteorfall and the collapse of Shinra that people were not willing to give up on the city that had once represented so much promise and progress, despite the fact that in reality, it cultivated nothing but oppression. Reeve least of all seemed willing to abandon the city he had once helped to design and construct. Judging from the traffic, people would always long to call Midgar home.

It was a little after ten that morning when Tifa finally found the Midgar Fight Club, a nondescript brick building that sat on the corner of a fairly busy strip mall in Sector3, sidling several other local businesses, including a nail salon, several item and materia shops, a liquor store, and a large supermarket.It wasn’t the nicest part of the Sector, she knew, but it was hardly the seediest, either.Tifa parked on the street and unbuckled her seatbelt, sharing a wan smile with Cloud before they both got out of the car and walked up to the building.

Pulling the heavy, steel door open, the first thing to accost Tifa’s senses was the wave of sweat, antiseptic, and heat that greeted her as soon as she stepped inside of the gym, Cloud a pace behind her.There was no preamble to the space; they were deposited directly into the center of the gym, face-to-face with an expansive open floor plan of two separate rings, a cage, and lines and lines of practice equipment, including heavy punching bags and speed balls suspended from rails that hung from the high ceiling, boxing power bars, and freestanding weightlifting and cardio equipment that were cordoned off to one large corner of the huge space. Mats were strewn everywhere.Yet most jarring was the noise.It was loud in this gym, a rapid onslaught of slaps and punches and grunts and the whiplash of jump ropes against rubber.All throughout the entire gym, in every corner, working on one piece of equipment or the other, sparring and dancing with opponents, fighters and boxers were practicing and working out.The gym was packed.

Tifa’s eyes, bright crimson and wide open, made note of only two other women training here as she scanned the room.

Cloud seemed completely unaffected by the scene, walking straight into the gym, his eyes scanning the entire space until they fell on a small office in the furthest corner of the gym. Quick strides brought him in its direction, and Tifa pulled her eyes from her survey of the space to catch up with him.

She did not miss the way several of the men in the room stopped their workouts to stare at her as they made their way across the gym.

When they reached the office, Cloud had lifted a fist to knock, but the door swung open first, and a brown-skinned man, close to fifty years old, stepped out, eyeing Cloud carefully before pulling the door closed behind him.His head was shaved completely bald, and he was as muscular, if not more so, than the other fighters who were scattered training around the gym.He was wearing a black vest that was open at the chest, and he was shirtless underneath, displaying a muscle-bound and hairless chest that did not look naturally achieved at all.He was oddly familiar to Tifa.

“Can I help you, Pretty Boy?” he asked at once, sizing Cloud up from top to bottom.He was almost a half a foot taller than Cloud was, and Tifa saw her husband tense up immediately, a scowl rolling across his face with a flash.

“Yeah, you can, actually.We’re here about the upcoming World Championship.”Cloud’s voice had taken on a strained, unamused tenor.

The man leaned back, crossing his arms across his wide chest, appraising him a bit before he answered. He glanced behind Cloud where the hilt of his sword peeked over his shoulder.“This is a mixed martial arts club, Pretty Boy.No weapons allowed, certainly no sword fighting.”

Cloud’s glower darkened considerably, and Tifa watched him give a start, suddenly concerned he was going to take a dangerous step forward. 

Mercifully, he stopped himself and tossed his thumb over his shoulder in her direction.“It’s not for me.It’s for her.”

The man eyed Cloud for just a moment longer before he turned hazel brown eyes to her, running his hand over the thick stubble of his black goatee.“A girl fighter, huh?Well, guess I should say, woman.How old are you, sweetheart?”

“Hey,” Cloud growled, and this time, he did take an aggressive step forward.Tifa felt flames, a hot blend of annoyance and embarrassment, creep up the side of her neck and scorch her cheeks.

The man put his hands up in front of him defensively, letting out a short laugh, but his eyes were scanning Cloud’s face again, lighting up with something like recognition.He turned back to Tifa then, letting the moment pass.

“No need to get so defensive.So you want to compete?” he asked her, ignoring Cloud now.

Tifa took a step forward, stretching her arms behind her with a confident nod.

“Yes.”

It wasn’t much later, after they’d sat down in his cramped, stuffy office that smelled like body odor and cheap whiskey, that Tifa realized why the proprietor of Midgar Fight Club was so familiar to her, why he’d been staring at Cloud so suspiciously from the moment he’d raised his fist to knock on his door.

Kevin “Kotch” Johnson co-owned and operated Midgar Fight Club alongside his partner, Scott “Scotch”McCullaugh, who, for whatever small mercies existed in the world, was out of the office that morning. 

Corneo’s henchmen.

Tifa had wanted to storm out at the exact moment of this revelation, and Cloud had almost not been far behind her.Gone was the brassy bleached mohawk and the leaner figure of his youth, but the familiarity of that day in Wall Market, fifteen years ago, brought new levels of disgust washing over her that left an awful taste in her mouth.Yet Kotch, never one to lose out on the opportunity to bring more revenue into his club, had done everything in his power to convince them to stay, and eventually, they’d both relented, not really wanting to abdicate the mission they’d come here to pursue.

Instead, Tifa found herself wondering how snakes like Kotch and Scotch always somehow managed to slither their ways out of crises, latching their fangs into the next opportunity they could suck the life out of. People like them were parasites.Bottom feeders.

Still, they managed the only major fight club on this continent that was sending fighters into the World Championship, and Tifa had already resolved in her mind that she was going to compete.

She’d already resolved, in fact, that she was going to win.

“You need a promoter,” Kotch informed her, standing above them in front of his desk, folding his arms over his chest, and Tifa could see how some of his teeth had begun to rot.“And a trainer.We don’t let anyone sign up to rank without a full-time trainer.”

She started to open her mouth, having not considered this, and her mind started to run through possibilities.Could she hire someone?This was a last-minute decision, not to mention a last-minute expense.

“I’m both,” Cloud was saying in a clipped, smug tone.

Tifa glanced at him in surprise, and Kotch appeared equally shocked, if not somewhat amused, judging by the smirk that pulled his lips.“Can you even fight, Pretty Boy?I seem to remember you just throwing around that big fancy sword a whole lot.”

Tifa watched the cords in Cloud’s neck snap like a tightrope, watched his fists clench at his sides, but Kotch only laughed and went behind the desk to pull out a clipboard with some forms, tossing it at Tifa to complete.

“Fill that out and we’ll get started.”

Once Tifa had registered herself with the club and signed up to compete in upcoming ranking matches, Kotch gave them a tour of the noisy club and explained the mechanics of competing in the female division.Most importantly, Tifa would have to start climbing the ranks, which meant she needed to start training immediately and making herself available for matches.As her promoter, Cloud would have to scour the leaderboards on a weekly basis and sign her up for matches against available opponents in her weight class, which, after standing on a scale and clocking in at 138 pounds, was determined to be featherweight.Most of the matches would take place at clubs in Midgar or Junon as the two largest cities on the Eastern Continent, but if Tifa climbed the ranks high enough, she could be matched against opponents all over the Planet, which meant she would likely be expected to travel for fights.The World Championship fights for that year were slated to take place at the Gold Saucer, right in the center of the Battle Arena.

Rankings were determined by the number of battles a fighter won.Winning streaks accelerated a fighter through the ranks quickly, raising their shot to compete in the final championship tournaments.Loses knocked them back down several pegs, cheapening their odds.

All of the fights were determined by knock-out status, Kotch informed them, which meant no items, materia, or any healing magic of any kind was permitted ringside. Combatants either walked away from a fight victorious, or bloodied and concussed.

“Aight.Before we can even start signing you up to rank, we have to make sure we’re matching you with opponents with your same fighting style.You look like a kickboxer,” Kotch observed, bending at the waist slightly to appraise Tifa’s legs, wrapped tight in spandex.“Definitely got the legs for it.”

Cloud was taking a menacing step forward again, causing Kotch to jump and lean back, but Tifa put her hand up to his chest and stepped forward herself.

“Zangan-Ryu,” she informed Kotch matter-of-factly, leveling her shining crimson eyes at him.

At this piece of information, Kotch’s expression visibly leapt into surprise, his eyebrows stretching up into the thick wrinkles of his forehead.“You’re shitting me.”

“I am not,” Tifa assured him.Cloud folded his arms over his chest, leaning his weight to one side behind her, a new and smug smirk pulling the corner of his lips.

Kotch scratched the back of his head so roughly and noisily that Tifa could hear his fingernails scrape against the stubble of his shaved head.“Well, I don’t think we have anyone on this continent who is trained in that,” he coughed, somewhat incredulously.“Gonna be difficult finding anybody who will even take you on for a fair fight.It’s a rare art these days, I’d say for sure.”

“Master Zangan had many pupils around the world,” Tifa bit out, finding herself thinking vaguely about her former sensei, who she had not seen since he left her in a doctor’s office in Midgar twenty years ago.“I am sure that some of them are still around and still wish to compete.”

“And I am sure that Master Zangan is probably dead, and hasn’t trained anyone in at least twenty years,” Kotch countered, eyeing Tifa with a little more scrutiny, though it wasn’t ribald in nature this time.It was leery.“How old are you, anyway?Forty?”

“Thirty-five!” Tifa nearly shouted, and a couple of boxers who were sparring on a mat to their immediate left stopped their violent dance, glancing in her direction.

Tifa heard Cloud sigh softly beside her, but her eyes, bleeding red, were locked in fury on Kotch’s ugly, tired face.Fists clenching at her sides, she was seconds away from sending one of them into his jaw.

Kotch just laughed, throwing his head back and ignoring the anger that was plain across her face.“Relax. I’m just doing basic math here.It had to be close to twenty years ago when you showed up to Corneo’s in that sweet little purple number.” His eyes darted impishly to Cloud. “None of us could believe that Corneo actually chose-“

“Are we going anywhere with this?” Cloud barked, and he was stepping up to Kotch again, causing the older man to back up with a guffaw that soon erupted into a cough.

In the end, it was determined that Tifa would be best matched against opponents trained in Muay Thai or Taekwondo.Eventually, Kotch left them alone, and they lingered around the gym, Tifa testing some of the equipment while Cloud grimaced at the men who watched her ceaselessly as she moved around the gym, practicing.Even the two women who were training in the gym could not take their eyes off of Tifa Lockhart, the newest and most intriguing combatant to enter the East’s amateur mixed martial arts circle.

——————

As the days crept by,Tifa found herself growing more and more enthralled with the prospect of competing in semi-professional matches.As soon as they’d returned from Midgar, after picking Aster up from school, Tifa went straight into their home gym in the basement and began rearranging the equipment to make better space for her to lay out mats for her and Cloud to spar on.While Cloud and Aster sat on the couch and watched movies together, as promised, Schatzi curled in Aster’s lap, Tifa sat next to Cloud with her laptop balanced on her knees, ordering new punching bags and jump ropes and calisthenic equipment, emptying her shopping cart with a purchase that was well over four thousand gil.

Although she was signed up with MFC, Midgar was simply too far for daily training.Cloud and Tifa agreed they’d visit once a week, on Saturdays, just to show face, bringing Aster along and making the day a ritual of visiting Midgar as a family while they were there.But after she checked on business during the day, Tifa trained daily in the gym in the basement, working out on her own - running on the treadmill, jumping rope and assaulting her punching bags, and sparring with Cloud late in the evenings when he came home from work, after dinner and after Aster was upstairs in bed for the night.

Sparring with Cloud was her favorite part of training, and she looked forward to it every night.He held up the boxing pads for her to assault, stiff as a rod and almost unflinching as she drove her fists into the leather.He timed her jump roping and the swiftness of her alternating kicks and punches to the heavy bag, counted how many times she swiped the speed bag in a single minute without slipping. He spotted her over the weights, stood under her with his mouth wide open as she did pull-ups over the bar suspended from the ceiling, and held her feet while she ran through a spitfire of sit-ups, his eyes trained on the pools of sweat gathering on her abdomen.

Cloud knew how to fight in the sloppy, instinctual way of someone who had learned a long time ago how to properly defend himself, aided by the mako that coursed through his system, making him supernaturally agile and strong. He blocked and parried and drove in for an assault with the same swooping efficiency that he used with his sword, but without the weight of metal in his hands, he was often less accurate, and Tifa almost always had him pinned to the mat after they danced around each other. Without fail, Cloud would manage to distract them from his loss by wrapping his hand around the back of her neck and pulling her in for a deep, sweaty kiss.Often, after pulling away from his lips and watching the ring of mako pulse around his pupils, Tifa wondered how much he was holding himself back just so he could achieve this very outcome.

Within a week, Tifa was feeling more and more like herself again, no longer afraid to drive across the Eastern Continent during the day for work, empowered by her training sessions each night where she felt herself getting stronger by the hour, and growing more and more eager for her first ranking competition.

The opportunity presented itself just three weeks after Tifa’d signed up to compete under MFC’s banner and started training seriously with Cloud.He’d been checking the leaderboards online daily as Kotch had said, and it was true that there was not a single fighter on any list, anywhere, who was trained in Zangan-Ryu.Most of the promoters who were sponsoring fighters trained in Muay Thai or Taekwondo immediately declined the offers for a match when they learned of Tifa’s fighting style.Tifa was beginning to grow impatient and restless when finally an acceptance came in, and she was matched against her first opponent, a twenty-two-year-old woman from Midgar.

“Twenty-two?” Tifa repeated incredulously to Cloud that Saturday morning as they stood in the middle of the MFC in Sector3.Tifa was sweaty from her workout, her hair pulled high in a ponytail on the top of her head, her sports bra drenched.Aster, who accompanied them every Saturday to the gym, had taken interest in her mother’s sport and was watching the practice matches from a bench on the sidelines withkeen interest.Cloud, who was also sweaty from sparring with Tifa, ran the back of his hand across his forehead.

“What difference does that make?” he asked, picking up a bottle of water from where it sat on the mat by his feet.“All that matters is the technique and the weight class.You’re stronger than everyone in this gym combined, anyway, Teef.”He popped the bottle open and dumped a slosh of water into his mouth messily, running it all over his chin and down his neck.

She blinked, distracted for a brief second by the sight of droplets on his pale skin, but quickly shook it off as she looked down again at her opponent’s stats.She was also a new contender who had not ranked in the official lineups, but she had an impressive record as a high school and university fighter.

Tifa had never once competed in anything to even have official stats, aside from her height and weight and the ominous presence of Master Zangan’s name in her fighting style.

——————

The match was scheduled right there at MFC, the following Saturday night. Not wanting to expose Aster to too much violence or encourage her that this sort of lifestyle was anything to pursue, Tifa had debated arranging for her to spend the night at a friend’s house, but Aster had shown a genuine interest in Tifa’s training and protested the idea immediately. 

“I don’t want to go Rhiannon’s,” Aster had complained that morning in the kitchen as soon as Tifa suggested it, her blue eyes wide and sparkling, reminding Tifa of the night Cloud had stared at her under the stars at the water tower.“I heard dad talking about your match and I want to see it.What’s the point of bringing me to the gym every week to watch you train if I can’t watch the match?”

Aster didn’t speak often, but when she did, it was often a punch to the gut.Another tactic she’d picked up from Cloud.Tifa sighed and nodded, offering her daughter a small smile before cupping her chin in her hand with a silent agreement.

The stark odors of camphor and menthol were permeating the locker room that night when Tifa entered, an hour before her match was scheduled at nine that evening.Wearing simple a white tank top over a black sports bra and black spandex shorts, she found an unoccupied bench and sat, unfurling a roll of stiff white gauze to wrap her hands and wrists in, clapping her palms in clouds of talcum before she pulled on her gloves.

Cloud was somewhere ringside, dealing with the mechanics of her match.Yuffie Kisaragi, who was still the most eligible bachelorette in Wutai, had somehow made herself completely available once she’d learned that Tifa was competing in professional matches, and was also in the stands, hanging with Aster where they’d secured front row seats inside of the cramped, odorous gymnasium.

In the meantime, Tifa limbered herself in preparation with long stretches, pulling with determination against the knots and cords that had formed inside of every pocket of muscle.

There was no one else inside of the locker room, aside from her opponent.When Tifa’d caught first glance of her as she entered with her backpack against her shoulder, she’d found herself somewhat floored by her youthful appearance.Tifa immediately had doubts about participating in this match when the woman turned to face her with a blank expression, blonde hair pulled into a severe ponytail against her skull.

After a time, Tifa heard a bell ring, and one of Scotch and Kotch’s associates who ran the ringside was inside of the locker room, gesturing for them to follow.

Her opponent was already at the door, her wrists bound in white bandages, thick black leather gloves snapping as she pulled them on in front of Tifa, smirking back at her before she disappeared into the thick darkness beyond the door.

Her name was Carly, Tifa remembered sometime later.Her name was Carly and Tifa ended up beating the shit out of her.

The fight had been so easy and unbalanced that Tifa had actually stopped halfway through the first round and sent a pleading look to Kotch, who sat with arms folded across his chest, amused at the entire spectacle.Scotch had already moved on, his gray-brown hair that was now fashioned into a ponytail in a long slime across his back, grimacing as he began cutting new deals along the ringside, just as Carly’s trainer dragged her out of the ring.

Carly, trained in Taekwondo, tried her level best with forceful kicks and stomps to block Tifa’s acrobatics.It quickly became apparent to every spectator there that night that Tifa Lockhart was more of a dancer than a fighter, watching in blends of stunned gasps and shouted cheers as she whirled through dolphin flurries that sent Carly spinning toward the ropes in a daze. After the second round, Carly’s trainer, a barrel-chested old man with greasy black hair and a gold chain around his neck, was visibly pale as he pulled Carly’s bloodied face into a corner.

“You’re doing great, Teef,” Cloud reassured Tifa, wiping spackles of blood away from the corner of her lips and the underside of her left nostril before he sent her back into the wild, where she pummeled Carly into the next lifetime, placing Tifa at the top of the featherweight class and leaving her available to climb the rankings over the course of the next several weeks.

Yuffie’s screams were the most deafening in the entire crowd of shouts in the gymnasium.

Tifa felt a thick haze cover her as she staggered toward the corner of the ring where Cloud was climbing up the ropes, wet rags and salves and a bottle of water crowding his hands.He dropped all of it to clasp her hand and lift it into the air, and Tifa just watched, a dull pain boring into her temple where she’d been hit, sweat pouring down the side of her face and running into her eyes, as the crowd that had been cramped into folding chairs around the center ring in the MFC gym clambered to their feet with applause, some of them cheering “Lockhart!” in a steady mantra.

The whirlwind of her victory fell around her like a serene mist, and Tifa realized, almost surreally, that it was the first time she had felt truly alive in a very long time.

That night, after celebratory calls to Marlene and Denzel at their dorms where they slept miles away at university, and a warm take out dinner of Wutain, Cloud, Tifa, and Aster returned home, just past the midnight hour.Tifa was smiling inwardly at her first ringside victory, even though the corner of her mouth smarted from where Carly had slammed it against her teeth, one of the few times she’d managed to get a decent attack past her defenses.

Just as Cloud pulled Tifa’s sedan into the driveway, Aster hit the back of Tifa’s seat with both fists.“Holy, mom! I had no idea you could kick so much ass!! Uncle Barret and Cid talk about it all the time but - that was so cool!”

Tifa felt herself tense at Aster’s improper language, but she tossed a glance over to Cloud, who was grinning wildly at her as he put the car into park.Tifa found herself blushing immediately, disregarding her annoyance at Aster’s words.

“Watch your mouth,” Cloud was saying, shutting the car’s engine off with a flick of his wrist, but there was a laugh in his voice.“And yeah, your mom has always been tough.She’s saved me more times than I can count.”He glanced at her then, offering her a wink, and Tifa felt herself falling into a blanket of warm reverie at the way he looked at her with such admiration and love.

“I want to know more about Meteor,” Aster said suddenly, unbuckling her seatbelt and leaning forward in the space between Cloud and Tifa’s seats in the car.Tifa could almost feel Aster’s blue eyes burning trails into the side of her face, and overwhelmed by the request, Tifa turned toward the window, finding herself biting her knuckle through her gloves that were palmed over with sweat.

Cloud handled it flawlessly, unbuckling his seatbelt and pulling open the driver’s side door.“Later,” he answered Aster, glancing back at her briefly before sliding out of the vehicle.“Your mom is pretty tired.Besides, I think your uncle is a lot better at telling those stories than we are.”

Aster sighed a protest, but dropped it, and Tifa found herself smiling again as she climbed out of the car and greeted Aster in the driveway, roping her daughter in for a long hug, the sweet wash of victory clinging to her skin.

After a too hot shower that left most of her skin feeling dried out, Tifa sat on the edge of their bed, a towel wrapped around her body and another swallowing her long, thick hair in a pile on top of her head, absorbing the beads of liquid that had pooled in it while she washed the sweat and blood and grime of her first ranking fight out of every pore of her skin.As she sat there, she felt the exhaustion settle into her bones, felt every muscle in her body somehow twitch and flicker with pain and overuse.She rolled her neck, hearing loud cracks, and she knew that despite her victory that night, she had definitely overdone it.

Cloud entered the bedroom a short time later, fresh from his own shower and dressed in sweats and not much else.He was holding a small bottle in one hand, and Tifa glanced up at him, drinking in the lines of toned definition that crafted his upper body.Miraculously, his pants were already tented in front of him, and Tifa couldn’t believe what she was seeing, considering the depletion that was tearing through every thread of her body.

“Really, Strife?” she sassed, unable to contain her amusement, her eyes centered squarely on his crotch.

Cloud smirked, closing the bedroom door behind him, leaving the room shadowed aside from the faint glow of the bedside lamp, warm and yellow.He padded his way into the room, finding a seat beside her on the bed and causing her to turn to him.

“It’s been this way since you knocked that poor girl out in the center of the ring,” He admitted, his voice already dropping octaves, and he leaned into her cheek, offering her a preview of his aftershave.“I hope you can help me.”

Tifa expelled a loud sigh when his nose drew a long line across her neck, before he leaned up and pressed a sweet kiss to her cheek.She shook her head wearily.

“I’m exhausted, Cloud,” she told him, “But I’ll do my best.”

Cloud was already moving, pulling the towel away from her hair and letting it tumble, dark and damp, across her shoulders and back in a long, cascading wave.Tifa closed her eyes when she felt him begin to card his fingers through its strands, shivering when they grazed across her scalp.

“Lay face down,” Cloud directed after a long moment of petting her through her tresses, and Tifa could hear the low rumble of lust that had entered his voice; she knew that cadence anywhere.His free hand rose to caress her lower back, fingers digging into her taut muscles. “You’re too tense.I need to work the knots out of these muscles or you’ll hurt yourself tomorrow.”

“But Cloud -“

“Lay down, Tifa,” he repeated firmly, and he was reaching for the small bottle he had brought over with him to the bed.

Tifa was not going to argue with him at this point, especially with the way his hand splayed across her lower back, sending warm shivers directly up her spine and into her brain.She slid across the bed in a long, fluid movement, keeping her towel wrapped around her, and laid down on her belly, stretching her legs out behind her as she clasped a pillow under her arms and let her eyes fall closed, sleep only inches away.

Cloud remained silent as he moved above her, gently pulling her towel down and away until it came to rest at her hips, and Tifa soon felt the slow drip of warm liquid cascade over her back.A moment later, Cloud’s large, rough palms were over her back, smoothing a buttery palate of oil into her skin, and Tifa was sighing against her pillow as his fingertips dug divots into her flesh, dragging long tracks up and down the plains of her back, the scent of vanilla rising faintly into the air as he worked. 

He stopped when he discovered particularly stubborn knots under and between her shoulder blades, and Tifa felt him pressing her into the mattress as he untangled them with the deftness and strength of his fingers.She arched against him, yielding and unwinding under the firm crush of his touch. The deep soreness that was embedded and lingering in her musculature was beginning to relent, and as he kneaded her into a soft, doughy mass, unwound and liquified, Tifa closed her eyes and almost fell face-first into sleep.

She was awakened by Cloud shifting on the bed, sliding down to lay beside her, pulling her in close to him, one arm snaking around to rest above her head.Tifa kept her eyes closed as Cloud used one hand to gently shift her to her side, exposing the front of her body to him.She smiled through the hazy border of sleep that was drifting around her, feeling his hand fall with a feathery softness over her body, caressing the sides of her breasts, stroking a line in the center of her abdomen.Tifa heaved a heavy, contented sigh, and Cloud leaned over her, dropping his lips to hers and pulling her in for a deep kiss, one that went on for an eternity and sent her sinking deeper into the mattress, the sheets swallowing her whole.

Tifa could feel the pace of her heartbeat blare inside of her chest, a drumbeat of steadily rising passion as Cloud lowered his lips across the side of her neck, stopping his trail only to nip at the tender flesh that was wrapped tight around her throat.His right hand, still greasy with oil, drifted lazily between her legs, finding her slick center and peeling it open with the ghostlike dalliance of his fingers.Feeling the rough smoothness split her along her crease, she arched her back, tipping her hips up towards him, just as he lowered his mouth to her left breast, taking her nipple fully into his mouth as he dragged it, hard and smooth, under his tongue.

The victorious thrill of her first triumph inside of the ring began to sing in her blood as Cloud stirred feelings of desire inside of her with the fluid languor of his touch and the hot, wet embrace of his mouth on her skin.As two of his fingers dipped inside of her, his thumb rising an inch to swipe at her clit, a moan slipped out of her mouth, and Tifa felt a livewire inside of her snap and splinter, igniting the stream of nerves that worked their way up to her brain.Suddenly, she could no longer lay passively under his idle touch this way, and she found herself swinging her leg over his hip, pushing him down into the bed as she rose up and straddled him.

Cloud looked up at her, his eyes heavy-lidded and yearning, his free hand rising to fall at her hip.His fingers were still inside of her, and he pressed them up and dug into her, pushing against a soft, ridgy spot that had her tossing her head back and crying out his name, grinding her hips down on him forcefully.

“Tifa…” he whispered in a forlorn gasp, his eyes clouded over dark blue with want.Tifa rolled her hips over his hand a few times, feeling his fingers curl up inside of her, sparking flames in the center of her belly with every press. He drifted his hand that sat at her hip across her belly, letting it fall to the apex between her thighs, and as he began a slow, upward stroke of her clit, Tifa let his name fall from her lips with the brightness of a sunny afternoon rain shower.

She felt herself growing closer, but the deep whorl of his fingers was not enough to send her to the edge with the fierceness she craved, and slowly she pulled her hips away from him, leaving his fingers slick on his belly.

“Tifa…” he complained when she moved away from him, but Tifa just smiled at him as she went for the waistband of his sweats and underwear, pulling them both down to the center of his thighs in one fell swoop, leaving his cock to spring free, wet and erect against his lower stomach.She climbed back on top of him, their eyes holding one another as his mouth hung open, and without further delay, she plunged herself on top of him, gasping with delight as she felt his length pierce her deep, reconnecting with the spongy spot inside of her where his fingers had been, his depth leaving her pressing her knees into his sides.

Tifa rolled a slow grind over Cloud, closing her eyes and pressing her hands in the center of his chest,and as he scraped against her insides, Tifa reached for his hand and brought it back between her legs.Eager, Cloud immediately resumed strumming her clit, and feeling a warm wave of new pleasing sensations echo through her nerves, Tifa sped her rotations above him, dropping her mouth open and letting throaty moans escape from her lips.

“Cloud… oh, right there.Please.”

Cloud sat up on his elbows, his eyes dark and covetous.She opened her eyes to meet his when she felt him move, and he lifted his hips to hers, thrusting even deeper into her as his thumb stayed pressed against her clit.He was offering her a smug smirk at the sound of his name on her tongue, and he brought up his free hand to her hip, pushing her down against him.

“Go for it, Tifa,” he breathed, his voice staggered with passion, his words clipped as if he was struggling to utter them.“Take what you want from me.I’m yours, baby.”

His words were gasoline on the fire that was erupting in the pit of her belly, and Tifa moaned in response, winding her hips around him until she was in a complete frenzy, her head thrown back as she cried out into the air.She was so close to bursting into a new star system, the galaxy opening bright and burning above her.At the sight of her exposed throat, Cloud growled, wolflike, and sat up fully, his chest greeting hers, and he slid his arm up away from her hip to wrap around her shoulder, crowding her close to him. 

“Cloud, I’m going to - “

“Come,” he finished her sentence, a rough command against her ear, and he lunged a succession of fast, agonizing strokes into her, twirling his thumb against the ache in her clit.With another cry of his name, Tifa did as he asked, falling apart around him, biting into the meat of his shoulder as she felt a constellation burst apart inside of her, an apocalyptic event that tore fire through every nerve in her body, sending a sea of flames to ride through the ridges of her brain.

She felt him shudder and twitch as she squeezed around him, and soon he was filling her with his warmth,both of his arms now around her back and holding him to her as she cried away the excess waves of her orgasm into his shoulder.His fingers were soon in her hair, his hand cradling the back of her head as he sent dark shivers into her skull that echoed over her flesh.

“Tifa,” Cloud was calling to her, but the afterglow was so blindingly bright, she was filled with a delirious confusion, keeping her tongue from moving in her mouth, leaving her feeling as if she was locked under an apparition that was keeping her paralyzed in place. She rolled her forehead against his shoulder, feeling tears free themselves, sticky and wet against his clavicle.

“That was amazing,” he finally beamed, and Tifa felt the warmth shudder over her again, wrapping her up tight.Cloud was pulling at her chin with his hand, lifting her head and forcing her to look at up at him. 

“You’re amazing,” he breathed, his eyes bright cobalt disks singing the song of the stars, and Tifa knew that he was not just talking about being in bed with her.

She sighed into his mouth as he dragged her in for a kiss before he fell backward across the sheets, pulling her with him as he enveloped her into a tight embrace.Spent, her fatigue fully recaptured her, and Tifa fell asleep with the sweet savor of his tongue skirting across her lips.

——————

The next several weeks, stretching on into October and November, went on in much the same fashion.Tifa kept up a steady routine of work, domesticity, and training with Cloud or on her own.Almost every other week, Cloud managed to sign Tifa up for another match against local fighters, and after three more fights, usually against opponents younger than herself, Tifa was climbing through the ranks, undefeated.She was growing stronger with the rigors of her training, and every glance in the mirror gleaned a new line of definition in her muscle tone, her skin shining against the ripples that were reemerging. The excitement of her participation in the Midgar Fight Club was beginning to generate interest, and Barret, along withMarlene and Denzel, who were home for the Harvest Holiday, had been in attendance at her last match.Yuffie never missed a single match, and Tifa wondered how much, if any, responsibility she actually took seriously back home in Wutai.

Tifa’s confidence had been built back up to an all-time high, and as the weather grew cold, she was feeling better and better about her odds of actually ranking high enough to compete in the World Championship and maybe even win.

It was a week after the Harvest Holiday when Tifa and Aster, who were hanging decorations on the Yule tree that Cloud had put up in the living room next to the piano, were interrupted by Tifa’s PHS ringing on the coffee table where she’d left it.Wiping her hands, Tifa handed the ornament she was holding to Aster before answering.

“Hey, Tifa,”Barret’s rough grumble greeted her through the phone.

“Barret.How are you?”

“I’ve been better,” he responded, and Tifa wrinkled her brow, crossing her arms over her chest as she watched Aster rising on her tiptoes to place the ornament on the tree.“I’ve got some bad news, Teef.”

“What is it?”

“It’s Marle,” Barret responded.“She passed away last night.”

Tifa’s back straightened with a start at those words. “What?”

Barret was speaking, rattling off details of Marle’s death and the arrangements and services to come, but Tifa was only half listening, her vision spacing out as Aster moved gracefully around the tree, oblivious to the nature of her conversation.She was thinking about the last time she had seen Marle, over two years ago during a visit to Midgar.She had not spoken to the woman who had become her surrogate grandmother in a stretch of long months, and a stab of guilt suddenly punctured the center of her chest, sending a white hot flame against her sternum.

After Meteorfall, Marle had been among the stubborn city-dwellers who clung to Midgar, refusing to migrate or move on, instead insisting on rebuilding the metropolis that seemed to have as many lives as a cat.Ever the leader, she’d stayed behind in Sector7 to help survivors and to assist with some of the rebuilding efforts, and even at her advanced age, Tifa had been shocked to learn that Marle had even coordinated with Reeve and the WRO as they all worked to try to salvage some of the wreckage that was Midgar.

Tifa and Cloud had never wanted to return to Midgar, but Tifa had done her best to stay in touch with the woman who had taken care of her, supplying her with a job and a roof over her head after Zangan had left her alone in the city, following the most the traumatizing event of her life.

Tifa mumbled a few agreements in response to Barret, confirming the date and location of the funeral later that week, and disconnected the PHS, dropping it back on the coffee table while Aster continued to decorate the tree.

After a long, bleak moment, Tifa turned away, walking into the kitchen where she sat down at the island and dropped her head into her hands, a silent stream of tears leaking their way down her cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope to see you in a week or so!


	3. Sorry, You're Not a Winner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for continuing to read this story. I hope that this chapter is conveyed the way I imagined it to be. I surfed through many emotions writing it, it unearthed a lot of feelings for me for a great many reasons. I have to thank my beta, [spaceOdementia,](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia) again for being so supportive of me during the writing process.
> 
> I apologize in advance for the length. Brevity is just not something I seem to understand at all.
> 
> This chapter takes its title from the Enter Shikari song [Sorry, You're Not a Winner.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWMywV0fTa8) I feel that the lyrics of this song really capture elements of this chapter, so I encourage you to give it a listen.  
>    
> _  
> Scratch card glory, waist low pleasure?  
>  Black eyes nose bleeds, don't look back now  
> My white abode, do you remember? I sweat, I ache.  
> Sorry you're not a winner with the air so cold and a mind so bitter  
> What have you got to lose but false intentions and a life so pretentious?  
> _

The Comeback Kid

——————

Chapter Three

Sorry, You’re Not a Winner

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2022 | December 8th

The day of Marle’s funeral was also the first snowfall of the season, and it fell in fat, puffy flakes, the kind of cottony snow that stuck and accumulated quickly, piling high on the sides of the street in Midgar’s Topside Sectors. Tifa normally loved the snow. Winter was her favorite season, and she’d always enjoyed watching the flakes descend from the skies and build into thick, fluffy hills outside of her window where she would watch it fall from the heavens.Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to enjoy the snowfall that afternoon, considering the circumstances.

Tifa had been devastated by Marle’s sudden passing, unable to tear her thoughts away from the last time they’d spoken, which was far too inexcusably long ago.The woman was close to eighty years old, and despite her natural spryness, it should not have come as a surprise to anyone that her time on the Planet might not be much longer.Yet Tifa had not given the possibility much thought at all, had not really considered that Marle, who was one of the few remaining elders in her life still alive, might not live much longer.They spoke infrequently and without much urgency over the years, and in the bustle of Tifa’s day to day life, she had not given their relationship as much consideration as she should have.

It was so close to the Yule season that Denzel and Marlene returned home for the funeral with their suitcases, planning to stay home for the holiday break. Denzel, who’d grown to be almost six feet tall, his hair shaggy around his shoulders, sat in the back seat of Tifa’s sedan, Aster wedged between him and Marlene, who had cut her hair just above her shoulders and dyed the tips of it with a hot pink ombre. Denzel was mostly silent during the trip to Midgar, staring down at his PHS, while Marlene chatted quietly with Aster in the backseat.

Tifa drove through the streets of Midgar, Cloud beside her in the front seat.The funeral was being held that morning in Sector7, where Marle had continued to live in the years after Meteorfall, committing much of the rest of her life to help Midgar rebuild, sustaining the WRO’s efforts at reintegration, and to clear the slums and move surviving residents to the reconstructed Topside plates. Tifa parked her sedan on a long, windy road outside of Rosedale Cathedral, an ornate and refurbished place of worship that was adjacent to a local gravesite where many in the Sector buried their loved ones once their spirits migrated to the Lifestream. 

Climbing out of the car, Tifa, pulled the hood of her wool peacoat over her head to repel the steady stream of snow that fell gently from the steel gray sky.A flake kissed the tip of her nose and melted instantly; Tifa flicked the wetness away with her thumb.She heard the car doors around her slam shut as Cloud and the kids ambled out of the vehicle.A little ways up the road, Tifa could already see Barret’s truck parked against the curb.

The kids entered the church ahead of her, Marlene and Aster at each other’s sides, Denzel a few paces behind them, his hands deep in the pocket of his coat.Cloud had been at their heels, but sensing Tifa lingering behind the group of them, he stopped to turn and wait for her, and Tifa watched as the snowflakes crested in white icicles on the tips of his golden wisps of hair before they melted and drizzled into his scalp.

“You okay?”

His hand was suddenly outstretched, and Tifa accepted it, hearing her boots crunch softly in the accumulation of snow beneath her feet.She offered him a tiny smile, warmth infiltrating the building coldness and dread that was stacking inside of her, both from the weather and from facing the finality of Marle’s death that lay somewhere ahead in a casket.She nodded at him, and he placed his open palm at the small of her back, letting her step ahead of him as he followed her inside of the church.

As they passed through the narthex of the cathedral, they were instantly covered in the darkness of the windowless antechamber, the sunlight outside swallowed up and disappearing when the heavy wooden doors shut behind them.The flicker of candlelight glowed in the far corners of the room, and Tifa glanced around at the sound of hushed voices as a few guests milled about in the quiet, dark foyer, avoiding entering the nave.

Marlene, who’d stopped growing just an inch shy of Tifa’s height, turned around with her hand at her zipper, her hair that was still dark brown at its roots shining with wetness from melted snow.“Should we hang up our coats?The coat room is over there.”

Tifa felt her mouth opening as she shook her head, but for whatever reason, her words couldn’t climb out of her throat.Cloud, his hand still at her back, stepped up and shook his head at Marlene.

“No, I don’t think it’s necessary, Marlene.We’ll be heading outside in a little bit for the burial.”

The lump in Tifa’s throat grew and swelled at his words, something painful stabbing at her sternum as she followed her family into the nave, the ceilings opening up high to wooden buttresses that supported the roof, sunlight finally streaming in through the filtering colors of the stained glass windows.The pews were already quite full, betraying how ubiquitous Marle was in Midgar.Even though Tifa knew how well-liked Marle had been, how she had a penchant for leaving an impression on people, she found her crimson eyes widening at how many people had already packed into the church to pay their respects.

Tifa spotted Barret near the front of the cathedral’s nave, where she could see the casket balanced atop a large stone platform in front of the pulpit, bright bouquets of flower arrangements bordering each side.Towering over nearly everyone else present, Barret was waving at them to get their attention.Marlene moved quickly, cutting carefully through the crowd to reach her father, leaving Aster and Denzel to walk side by side behind her, Cloud and Tifa a pace behind.

Barret, who’d enveloped Marlene in a tight hug as soon as they made their way to the front, had aged probably better than any of them.With the exception of the salt and pepper that had infiltrated his dark hair, he looked almost exactly the same as he had fifteen years ago.His deep brown skin seemed completely immune to the effects of time and resisted wrinkles entirely.He kept his form in the same muscular shape, though Tifa noticed that his middle had more recently taken on a slight paunch, likely the effects of too much beer with Cid, especially since he’d almost fully retired from his refinery business in Corel.Releasing Marlene, he turned to Aster first, leaning down to wrap her in a bear hug that ended with her laughing from its tightness, before he turned to Denzel, clapping him too hard on the back.

“These damn kids just won’t stop growing.”

His voice was a little too loud, especially considering the circumstances.Marlene turned, just as she was moving to slide into a pew, and chastised him with a sharp “Shh!”, a pink fingernail pressed to her lips.Tifa found herself smirking with slight amusement as she watched the three of her children slide into the pew together, Aster between Marlene and Denzel again.

“Tifa, I’m sorry, girl,”Barret was enveloping her next, wrapping her in his thick arm, a familiar feeling of comfort and warmth that she’d hadn’t felt in a long, long time.Smiling lamentably,Tifa reached her arms up to hug him back, her hands barely able to reach up to his shoulder blades.

“I should say the same to you,” she responded as they pulled apart.“You knew Marle even longer than I did.”She swallowed carefully, pushing her tears down, and pushing them down deep.

Barret gave her a smile, and she saw the betrayal of softness behind his light brown eyes, saw the way the twin scars over his left eye wrinkled when his lips turned up.

“Well, she ain’t damn near raise my ass the way she did you,” he told her, and Tifa winced slightly at the memory before she looked down a little, feeling the familiar stab once more, only this time, it was growing hot, as if the knife had been sitting in fire before it plunged into her heart.

Barret was already moving on to Cloud.“And you, Spikey.I bet you don’t even remember Marle,” his eyes lit up with mirth at his own teasing.

“Of course I remember her,”Cloud bit back defensively. 

Barret gave Cloud a rough shove with his good palm.“A decade and a half and you still don’t know how to take a joke,” he guffawed, shaking his head.“Anyway, I’m glad you brought the kids.I know they all weren’t very close to Marle, but she was an important part of their lives, believe it or not.All of our lives, come to think about it.”

Tifa nodded, now staring straight ahead at the pale silver satin inside of the lid of Marle’s coffin.

“You want to see her?” Barret’s voice had grown soft beside her ear.

Tifa looked up at him, craning her neck, her mouth falling slightly agape but words not working their way out.Next to her, Cloud took a step closer, his hand finding hers.She turned to him, and their eyes met; his were still and tranquil lakes of understanding and patience, and he waited for her to make a decision.Tifa gave him a small nod, and hand in hand, they followed Barret’s hulking form down the remainder of the aisle to the dais where Marle’s casket rested.

Tifa held in her breath when she and Cloud approached, standing over the casket, and she felt her heart drop to her knees as she leaned forward.Dressed in a simple blue shift, a long, dark shawl draped over her shoulders, Marle lay ensconced in the confines of the coffin, her wrinkled hands folded with careful precision over her lap.She looked smaller, frailer than Tifa remembered her from their last visit so many months ago, as if somehow the short span of time they’d been apart had withered away whole parts of her.Up close like this, Tifa could see the moles that speckled the flesh of her hands, the skin so translucent she could make out the veins and bones beneath.Marle’s hair, which had always been a thick, silver shock for as long as Tifa could remember it, was pulled into a tight bun against her skull, the strands smoothed and pinned back. 

She looked so much older and farther away than the images that had burned themselves into Tifa’s memories, and Tifa wondered how much she had glossed over and missed out on during the last decade or so.

Cloud squeezed her hand, and Tifa finally tore her eyes away from Marle, feeling tears pinpricking the corners of her eyes as they walked back to the pews. She slid into the pew next to Denzel, Cloud following close behind her and taking her hand in his once again as they settled into a seat. She heard the whispered chatter of her children to her right; Marlene was comparing this church to the one in Sector5 that had belonged to Aerith Gainsborough, which led Aster to follow up with whispered questions that Tifa was glad she could scarcely make out.Denzel interjected only once to remark that this church was a lot nicer than Aerith’s, before he pulled his PHS out and started to scroll through it.Tifa hit him on the knee and regarded him with a disapproving look.

As the guests settled around them and fell into silence, a clergyman taking the helm behind the pulpit, the words and soft cries of mourning that surrounded Tifa began to fall into a dull, bleating chorus that seemed far, far away.She felt encased in a thick fog, blurred at the edges, her attention on the dark wood casket that sat at the front of the room, her eyes unfocused as the priest began the ceremony.

A few folk took time to eulogize Marle, most of them leaving brief, clipped words that were interrupted by streams of tears.It was common knowledge that Marle did not have any living blood relatives left, and mostly everyone who spoke were former Undercity residents of Sector7 whose lives had been impacted in some profound way by Marle’s tutelage, her generosity, her stern advice, or her caring and capable hands.Most of them, along with a generous donation from the WRO, had pitched in to cover Marle’s burial costs, as there were no next of kin to speak of. Barret spoke, still a firm grasp on his talents for oration, lauding without shame how Marle had supported AVALANCHE’s activities against Shinra over the years, how she had never shied away from the face of danger, how she refused to live with Shinra’s boot on her or anybody else’s neck.

Tifa felt guilty for not having the courage to get up and say a few words about the woman who had taken care of her for nearly five years of her life.

Reeve Tuesti was the last to rise, providing the final eulogy in respect to Marle.The same age as Barret, he had not aged quite as well, yet at fifty years old, he maintained much of his rugged yet polished handsomeness.His hair was still so starkly black that Tifa wondered if he had taken to dying it.

Reeve was standing at the pulpit, gripping its sides. “Marle was a lot of things to a lot of us.But the one thing she always did was keep us focused.After Meteorfall, I cannot think of a single civilian living in this city who did more to help the people in the survival efforts.Some may think her efforts were small - but they had great impacts.They were the kinds of impacts that left ripple effects on everyone.

“Marle read a lot, some of you who knew her well will remember.Her favorite book was _A Story of Seven Slums_.It was written years before Midgar was ever conceived of,before I had even been born, let alone designed and drafted the plans for this metropolis.Perhaps if I had read it, I would not have made the choices I made to let Midgar become what it became.

“I remember a conversation I had with Marle, sometime after Meteorfall.She was volunteering with the WRO, and I was - I was torn about Midgar.Could it be salvaged?Was it worth salvaging, I wondered?Hadn’t Shinra done enough damage?I had - I had doubts that I could even lead the organization in the wake of Shinra’s downfall without somehow tarnishing its efforts with my history and my reputation, with the weight of my past choices hanging over me.And Marle - she gave me quite a talking to, that day.You see, Marle didn’t like for anyone to mope around, to wait for something to happen.There was no time for tears and no time for self-pity.

“She read me these lines, her favorite lines in the story, and then she told me to get off my ass and fix Midgar.And as I sit here and remember Marle, I remember those words, and I wish to share them with you, and to dedicate them in her memory and in her honor.”

Reeve picked up the small novel he had brought with him to the pulpit, opening it to a dog-eared paged, and read softly aloud from the page.

 _“I see a beautiful city. And a brilliant people, rising from this abyss. I see the lives, for which I lay down my life - peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy. I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known._ ”

Tifa couldn’t see when Reeve closed the book, or when he stepped away from the pulpit, or when anything else happened after that for that matter. Her eyes were clouded over with tears.

Outside and down the road, those closer friends and loved ones who wished to remain took the short walk in a streamed procession through the snow, passing through wrought iron gates into Rosedale’s vast cemetery.The snow was still falling, and it made walking along the pathway difficult as it stuck and accumulated into a puffy, wet layer.Tifa had not brought gloves, and her hands were chilled, drying out from the icy conditions.She shoved one hand deep into her pocket; the other was still folded inside of Cloud’s.

Marle’s gravesite was chosen not far from the main road, in a plot amongst rows of other dead.Tifa and her family were standing in the front of the crowd, watching as Marle’s casket was lowered into the ground, the whispered prayers falling from the clergyman’s lips, the waves of sadness becoming too much to bear for them all. Barret stood staring at the snow that had become soiled under his boots, his eyes misted over with tears.Marlene’s eyes were stained with silent tears as she stared at the dark pit of earth, snow gathering in the dirt and in a layer on the wood casket, her hands in front of her, fingers pulling at the threads of her gloves. Denzel, who had not known Marle well at all, stood with shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, the solemnity of the moment weighing him into the ground. Aster had finally abandoned Marlene’s side, instead making her way to stand between Tifa and Cloud, leaning against Tifa until Cloud crouched in close to wrap his arms around both of them silently.

Tifa simply wept, the snow sharp little needles of ice that stung her cheeks as it fell on her skin and clung to her lashes, and when the casket disappeared, she closed her eyes finally, dropping chin to her chest as she felt the world fade away around her, leaving her surrounded by a thick fog of disbelief and sadness.

The crowd began to disperse, and Tifa stood numbly as she exchanged hugs with Barret and Reeve, even a few familiar faces from Sector7 who she had not seen in many years, including Wymer and Gwen and Nairn and a few others.But she was too hazy from the finality of Marle’s death and too disappointed in herself for letting years pass by without her ever telling the woman who she loved, who had filled such a void in her life for so many years, how she truly felt.

Tifa felt Cloud’s hand guiding her back again, and she saw that he was now hand in hand with Aster, who was staring at her shoes, shielding her eyes from everyone.Marlene was walking ahead of them with Barret, completely dwarfed by his size, his heavy arm around her shoulders as they walked back to the vehicles together.Denzel was behind them, hands still in his pockets, his gait slouched.

“C’mon, Teef,”Cloud finally spoke, his voice cutting through the cold, still air with a puff of frozen condensation.“Let’s go home.”

“Tifa?”

They were rounding their way to the road when Tifa heard the voice not far behind her, a deep, masculine baritone that rippled over her with a wave.She stopped, her hand slipping away from Cloud’s as she turned in the direction of her name.

He was standing a few feet behind them, wrapped tight in a black wool cloak that rose all the way up to his chin.He was an older man, at least seventy perhaps, but with a strong, tall build, sturdy and solid.His skin was ruddy and dark from years of exposure, and his hair was a deep shade of gray, tied back in a severe tail.His face, shorn with the wrinkles of time, was covered with a thick beard that was just a few shades darker than the hair on his scalp.As Tifa absorbed his image, her pupils grew as wide as saucers in her eyes.

“…Master Zangan?”her voice was barely a breath above a whisper.

Cloud had stopped and turned when she’d dropped his hand, and he stared at the man who was facing Tifa, holding his cloak closed around his neck in a tight, gloved, fist.Tifa didn’t notice how he stiffened behind her as her eyes fell, crimson pools swirling under the still gently falling snow.

“Tifa, my dear girl.It’s been so long since I’ve seen you last.”

Tifa stood there as if frozen in place, the moment crystallizing around her as her eyes connected with Zangan’s dark brown irises.The snow that was still falling around them seemed to blur in her vision as she stared, disbelieving and disconnected from her body at the man who had trained her to become the fighter she was at that very moment, the fighter she had been for the last twenty years.

The last time that Tifa had seen Zangan had been before Nibelheim had burned down, and the knowledge of this thought collided into her, making her feel as if she was staring at a ghost.

“Zangan… I thought, I…” She stuttered her way through her response, but the effect was plain.She could not form words, because she had no clue what to even say.“What are you doing here?”

Zangan’s face softened, the wrinkles that were torn into his leathery skin shifting as he closed the distance between them.As his footsteps drew nearer, Tifa felt a panic flutter over her nerves, causing her to stumble back a step. 

“Tifa, I know it’s been a while.I - “Zangan’s voice cracked and broke, splintered and fell away somewhere into the snow.Tifa felt the disbelief prickle the corners of her eyes, and she backed up even further until she felt Cloud’s palm in the center of her back again.

“Tifa,” he was whispering at her side, and Tifa turned to him to find his blue eyes fixated on Zangan with a penetrating glare.“Are you alright?Maybe we should go.”

Tifa was silent for a moment, the knives still lodged in her throat.She turned away from Cloud to look at Zangan, realizing he had lifted a hand slightly, as if reaching for her.She swallowed hard, her eyes meeting his again.

She heard Cloud calling her name again after another moment passed, her gaze still locked with Zangan’s, her mind trying to plunge into the reality of the ghost who was standing before her. Hearing the strained concern in Cloud’s voice, Tifa suddenly forced her limbs into action, digging her now frozen, trembling hand into one pocket to fish out her keys.She handed them to Cloud, shaking.

“It’s okay, Cloud,” she told him softly.“Go to the car with the kids.I’ll be right there.”

Cloud stared at her, unmoving.The keys dangled between them in her fingers, catching flakes as they settled around her hand.Tifa held his eyes for a moment, then thrust her palm at him, pleading.

“Please,” she whispered harshly.

Cloud exhaled, letting Tifa drop the keys into his palm with a soft clang.After studying her face for a moment, his irises darting against the whites in his eyes, he turned his blue stare to Zangan, scrutinizing him for a long moment before he heaved a sigh and made off in the opposite direction toward where the others were waiting by the vehicles at the side of the road.

Tifa turned back to Zangan, finding him standing there, waiting patiently, his hands now folded in front of him.Tifa realized belatedly, now that they were alone, how tall he was, how hulking his frame was, even in age.Time had gently erased away most of her memories of him, and she found herself staring at him as if everything around her was crossed and blurred, as if new memories were being burned into the ridges of her brain.

“Tifa, I’m sorry to startle you this way,” Zangan took a step forward, closing the distance between them.This time, Tifa didn’t move back, just held her ground where she stood, feeling the snowflakes slow their descent but still tumble cold and wet across her skin wherever it was exposed.“This is my first time back in Midgar in twenty years.”

Tifa just nodded, pulling at the sleeves of her peacoat, her fingertips growing numb from the cold air and the sting of snow.She ground her teeth into her bottom lip, trying to measure and choose carefully her response.She didn’t know what to say to Zangan after all of these years, after he had left her alone and had never reached out to her, not even once - aside from a letter that she had found in Nibelheim far, far, too late.At one time, Zangan had been more than a sensei to her - he had been a mentor, a confidante, someone she could trust.But he had evaporated into thin air after Nibelheim burned down, right up into the air with the ashes and smoke and everything else that had been a part of her former life.

“I see…” Tifa finally managed, snow catching on her eyelashes.“I… I have to say I’m a little surprised.Many of us - many of us assumed you were dead.”

Zangan chuckled ruefully, lowering his head to look down at where his boots had dug tracks into the snow.“Well, I can imagine the assortment of rumors that may have circulated about my demise.Mostly, I’ve spent my years laying low, staying out of Shinra’s way.”He was looking back up at her again, dark eyes shining, creases at their corner from the smile that was splayed on his face.“But of course, you yourself know quite a bit about what that’s like, isn’t that right, Tifa?”

Tifa wiped away the snow that had fallen into her face.“I suppose so, but Shinra has been gone for almost fifteen years,” she replied.“Where have you been all of this time, Master Zangan?”

Tifa swallowed the lump back again.Memories of growing up in Nibelheim, practicing under Master Zangan’s tutelage were beginning to creep up into the farthest recesses of her mind, threatening her with distraction.She saw herself practicing with him at the local dojo, under the harsh repetition of his drills. She caught a glimpse of herself opposite one of his students from Cosmo Canyon whom he had brought one day to spar against her. She remembered - vaguely - the day that student and teacher sparred against each other on the mountain’s cliffside, the gales of the winter wind blowing around them, days before Tifa had decided to sign up for the local job as a tour guide of the mountains.

“It’s quite the story,” Zangan answered her, pulling her out of the fog of memories.“Perhaps you will indulge an old man sometime?”

Zangan folded his hands in front of him, his eyes coals that were brightening with hope.Tifa at once felt something heavy weighing on her, and she was suddenly compelled to glance over at Marle’s gravesite, where her casket had already been lowered into the ground.

She did not have many people left in the world, Tifa realized. Her parents were long dead.Her grandparents had all died before she was born or old enough to remember any of their faces.She had just buried the woman who had stood in their stead during her most vulnerable years.Like herself, those who remained in her life were only getting older.

Turning back to Zangan, Tifa wondered if she could afford to waste any more time.

“Why don’t you come to my home for Yule Dinner?” she found herself offering.

* * *

Yule was still two weeks away, and Tifa knew that she wanted to see Zangan before that, though the offer for dinner still stood.

She learned, before departing the cemetery, that Zangan had actually taken up residence in Kalm, at least temporarily.He skirted around her questions of a permanent home, instead hinting that, even at his advanced age, he spent most of his time drifting from place to place.Tifa, seeking answers, had agreed to visit him there, unable to wait until Yule dinner. Zangan had given her the address of the inn in Kalm where he was staying, and Tifa had stored the information inside of her PHS before turning away, wordlessly and without further ceremony, from her former sensei.

Cloud wasn’t happy about Zangan’s sudden appearance, and he wasn’t happy about Tifa’s invitation for him to join them for Yule dinner, either. His sudden, unexplained silence during their ride home from Marle’s funeral had been the first clue that he was brooding over something, but Tifa hadn’t noticed it as she gripped the steering wheel, driving them carefully through the snowfall out of Midgar and back along the roads to Junon.She was preoccupied with the litany of thoughts that were assailing her mind, tangled with Marle’s passing, Zangan’s emergence, and her own training and upcoming competitions.

Time was beginning to make sure its presence was known to her in all of the ways that it could design, she was realizing.Not only did it remind her of the countdown on her own clock, prompting her to push harder at conditioning her body than she had ever thought she would before, it was now pulling up ghosts from the past to remind her how short life was and how little time there was left.

Despite all of this, life moved on, and for the next several days after Marle’s funeral, Tifa resumed her daily routine - working, training, and keeping the household in order.With Marlene and Denzel both home for the holiday season, things around the house were introduced to a new layer of chaos.Marlene could be helpful around the house, but she also missed her local friends while she had been away, and so she spent many afternoons and evenings away from home, despite the fact that Tifa could have used her assistance with dinner or with helping Aster with her homework.Denzel had never been very helpful around the house the way that Marlene had once been, but he did contribute to the growing piles of laundry that seemed to grow taller and taller by the hour, and he too spent most of his time in his room in the attic playing video games with his friends, if he wasn’t at one of their houses doing the same. Tifa rarely saw much of her two oldest children despite the fact that they were both home for the holidays.

With the Yule season fast approaching, the local MFC tournaments were slowing down, and Tifa was scheduled for her last fight before the New Year the Saturday after Marle’s funeral.The match had been in a fight club in Lower Junon against a twenty-five-year-old from Kalm.Tifa was still holding onto an undefeated record, and her matches were generating more interest, and for the last match of the year in the women’s division, the stands were packed.All of her friends and family — including Barret, Cid, and Yuffie had been in attendance, along with Marlene and Denzel, who had even brought a few of their friends along. Some of Tifa’s franchise managers, including Johnny and Lucinda, came to see the fight, and Tifa was beginning to grow a large following of fans, judging from the way “Lockhart” was constantly chanted in the crowd.And for the first time, Tifa realized after the match, she was left a gift from a fan - large bouquet of white roses that was handed to her by Scotch, who insisted he had no idea who had sent them.

Tifa had won the match after four rounds, one of the toughest fights she’d been in since signing up to compete.As Tifa climbed the ranks, her opponents were becoming more and more difficult, and the quarterfinals of the World Championship were not far in the distance.As she unwrapped her swollen knuckles in the locker room that night, wincing at the bloodstains that chalked their way through the gauze, she realized that she was going to have to train harder than ever if she was going to sustain the momentum she had to power through the upcoming quarter and semi-finals in order to make it to the Championship in the Gold Saucer that spring.

That night, after they’d returned home and Tifa had showered and dressed for bed, she resolved to finally pay Zangan a visit.

* * *

Tifa rearranged her work schedule for the rest of the week the next morning so that Kalm was her next franchise visit that very same day.Kalm, being a relatively quiet and small town, was her smallest operation of all of the franchises that she’d opened.Kalm’s location operated as more of a family-style restaurant than a bar, its menu focused on offering home-cooked meals that often catered to the whims of travelers who passed through the quaint, sleepy village along their voyages. The franchise manager was an older man named Mario who had owned a similar restaurant in the same location, but had run into some serious debt problems; Seventh Heaven had provided a way for him to keep running the business he loved but without the threat of financial ruin.Secretly, the Seventh Heaven in Kalm was Tifa’s favorite.

The snowfalls from the week prior had frozen over with the stiff chills of the following days, and Tifa had to drive carefully through Kalm’s narrow streets to avoid skidding on the roads and risk a collision.After meeting with Mario that morning and running over some business reports, Tifa left Seventh Heaven and drove the short distance across town to the Ivory Tavern, the oldest and solitary Inn in Kalm.Parking in the small, nearly empty lot outside, Tifa locked the car and made her way inside of the rustic old building.

Like everything else in Kalm, the Ivory Tavern was whimsical and antiquated, likely built more than seventy or eighty years ago.Yet the people of Kalm were reputed for taking good care of their village and its architecture, and for using sturdy materials that withstood the trials of time.Even though the tavern was old, it was clean and well-maintained, and Tifa felt a sense of nostalgia wash over her, recalling some of her earliest memories of Nibelheim when she entered the rustic foyer of the inn.

After a brief conversation with the proprietor behind the desk, a phone call was made up to Master Zangan’s room, which he had rented through the New Year.After hanging up the phone, Tifa was informed she could make her way up the stairs to room 202.

Her heart pounded inside of her chest her entire way up the flight of stairs, listening to the old wooden floorboards creak and protest beneath her boots.That first moment that she had seen Zangan at Marle’s funeral Tifa felt as if a sudden apparition had been standing in front of her, catching her completely off guard and bringing up old memories that she had thought had been locked and stored away forever. Recalling her conversation with Kotch weeks ago at the MFC, Tifa had been in subconscious agreement that her former sensei was likely dead.

It remained so difficult for her to accept that the man she had so looked up to and admired had abandoned her in Midgar for so many years.Death had been the only reasonable explanation. As she lifted her hand to knock on the door to his room, Tifa realized that today might be the day she would finally learn the truth.

A moment after her fist dropped to the heavy wooden door, it slid open, revealing Zangan in its frame.Without the heavy cloak that he’d been wearing at Marle’s funeral, he appeared far more slight in stature than Tifa’d ever remembered him to be.Zangan had once been a tall, burly man, with muscles so strongly developed they made even his wrists appear thick.And while he was by no means frail in his old age, he had certainly lost much of his prior brawn, reminding Tifa once again of the effects time would eventually have on them all, no matter how hard they fought against it.

“Ah, Tifa, I’m so pleasantly surprised that you stopped by.Please, come in.I’m just sitting down to have some tea.Your timing is perfect.”

Tifa nodded as Zangan stepped aside to make space for her to enter the room.As she stepped inside, she noticed Zangan’s three large suitcases that seemed to carry everything that he owned - and he’d unpacked all of it, making the room into a temporary living space.She noticed the small figurines of Wutain deities along the windowsills, a candelabra with several thick, red sticks of unlit wax, stacks of tomes and books that looked even older than her former master himself on the desk against the wall.

“Please, make yourself at home, my dear.Let me get the tea from the kitchen.”

“I can help,” Tifa immediately offered, rubbing her hands together in front of her, still trying to chase the chill from her hands.But Zangan held up a hand to her before he turned.

“Please,” he stopped her.“Take off your coat and get comfortable.You are a guest.I’ll be out with this in a moment.”

Tifa nodded, watching him drift over to the small kitchenette in the corner of the farthest side of the room.She watched his back for a moment, noting his long tail of dark gray hair wind a trail over the slight hunch in his back as he stood over the stove, pouring hot water from a kettle into a pair of mugs.Tifa noticed that even though he moved with purpose, he was still stiff and rigid, as if his bones were protesting his every movement.Tifa sighed and turned away, sliding her coat away from her arms and draping it against the back of a chair that was beside the desk.

While she waited for him, she let her eyes wander the room again, stopping on one of the stacks of books on the desk near the chair she’d left her coat on.Curious, she drifted over to it, glancing at their spines. As she tipped her head to one side to read them, Tifa realized that most of the books were old war and political texts - theoretical treatises on strategy and tactics.A couple of the titles were classics, names that Tifa easily recognized, and all of them were old, ancient in fact.She wrinkled her brow, wondering what possible use Zangan could have for these old tomes.

She was just starting to lift one to take a look at it when Zangan returned, carefully carrying a tray with the teacups balanced atop it.Bending at the waist by the small sitting area in front of the old television set in his room, he set the tray on the coffee table and then looked over at Tifa.

“Ah, I see you’ve found some of my old collection,” He chuckled softly, glancing over at the stack of books she’d taken interest in.“An old man’s indulgence, nothing more, I’m afraid.When you’ve studied the art of combat for as long as I have, you come to appreciate the way those in power aim to use such talents as ours.”

Tifa tore her eyes away from the stack of books, dark red eyes meeting brown, and she saw the softness in his eyes as he stared back at her.Something heavy, like regret, hung in the backdrop of his statement.As their gazes connected, Zangan let his linger on Tifa’s face for just a moment longer before he pulled away and gestured for her to sit at the sofa in front of the coffee table.

“Come, dear, let’s sit.I wasn’t sure how you took your tea, so I brought some sugar and honey just in case.”

Tifa nodded, dragging her fingers away from the books and crossed the few short paces across the room to sit on the sofa.As Zangan sank into the cushions, he heaved a heavy sigh as if he were undertaking a massive enterprise.

“There we are,” he said, settling in, pulling his robes around him with a flourish.He leaned forward for his steaming mug, and Tifa unfolded her hands from her lap to do the same, forgoing adding any sugar to her tea.She needed something sharp and bitter to keep her thoughts from wandering too far into the deep reveries the surrealness of this moment was prompting her into.

“I would certainly enjoy hearing about your life these past years,” Zangan began softly, holding his mug up to his chin.“But I suppose I should let you begin with your own questions.”

Tifa inhaled a deep breath. “Master Zangan” she began quietly.“I… I was very confused when I woke up in Midgar.It took me months to even remember what had happened.Marle… she was the one who told me that you had brought me to Midgar. I couldn’t understand why I was there alone.”

Tifa thought to go on, but her voice caught in her throat, and the words collapsed into a slow death, swirling down the drain back into her esophagus. She saw a brief flash of pain erupt across Zangan’s face, pushing the wrinkles on his brow into even deeper creases before he turned away.

“Ah…” he was looking down at his hands, and Tifa’s eyes dropped to them for the first time as well, noting how strained and leathery they appeared.They were hands that had beaten and struck against flesh and foe for decades, they were hands that had seen the harsh conditions of the sun and the frigid cold.They were hands that had toiled and labored, hands that still did. 

“I suppose I do owe you some answers, after all of these years.”He was looking back up at her again, and Tifa couldn’t tear away from his stare this time.The intensity of his dark eyes was suddenly stirring new memories, memories of his harsh but encouraging commands for her to tighten her stance and straighten her aim, to focus her breathing and center her balance.Tifa felt like she was being transported decades into the past, once again a young girl who only wanted to get stronger so that a mountain might never try to kill her again.

“Why did you leave?” she asked bluntly.

Zangan was quiet for a long moment, holding the teacup in front of him, its steam rising in a slow stream in front of his face.Tifa watched as his shoulders pulled back with the long breath that he took in. 

“My history with Shinra was… complicated,” he breathed out at last, and Tifa’s eyes fell to his hand, wrinkled and calloused, and trembling as he brought the teacup to his lips for a sip.He drank carefully, the air between them both stiffening.“I suppose it is best if I start at the beginning?”

He set the teacup down, shifting slightly, pulling at the dark robes that were wrapped around him as he began his tale.

_The woman - young, but not too young, perhaps in her early thirties - was sitting ensconced in darkness, a single, dim bulb hanging overhead providing the only light in the room.She was rifling through a set of floppy disks, long, dark hair pulled into a tight ponytail that was dragged over one shoulder.She chose one disk, twirling it in her fingers before she slid it into the drive on the laptop that was seated in front of her, bringing the device’s screen aglow to life._

_The door slid open, pouring more light into the room.She squinted, seeing the shadowed frame of two men in the doorway - one thin, wiry, and young, far too young to be leading this outfit, the other bulky, muscle-bound, and tall.She straightened, anticipating their entrance, and she watched as the thinly built one, dark hair swept away from his eyes, entered the room first, and summoned the larger man who stood behind him with a beckoning of his fingers._

_“Marle,” Fuhito began, his voice a haughty soprano, pitching into the darkness of the room she had been working silently in.“This is Master Zangan.I am sure you are familiar with him, his talents are quite renowned across the world.”He turned to Zangan then, who remained stiff limbed, just a few inches shy of the doorway._

_Zangan turned to the dark-haired woman, his coal-brown eyes centering with hers.Her hand fell away from the laptop, dropping to the side of the table almost defensively, as if she anticipated something suddenly happening.There was a rigidness in her stature, even as she sat at the chair, that belied a woman who was always on edge, always anticipating a fight._

_She was pretty, he found himself thinking, but her eyes were so piercing that the thought quickly evaporated._

_At Marle’s silence, Fuhito turned to close the door behind Zangan, before he swept his thin, sinuous hands over his jacket and then adjusted his glasses where they sat perched on the top of his nose.He regarded Marle for a moment before turning to Zangan, who shifted slightly, his fists coiled tight at his sides._

_“Zangan has agreed to assist the raid of the Mako reactor they are building in Sector4,” his nasally voice cut through the silence, and Zangan watched as Marle’s back became an even stiffer rod, and she was suddenly appraising him with those dark, penetrating eyes, somehow sizing him up and making a mental calculation of him right where he stood.“You’ll be partnered with him for the mission.I expect him to handle Shinra’s grunts while you focus on the planting the explosives.”_

_“Fine with me,” she finally responded after a long moment, then turned away from them both._

_Fuhito laughed, shaking his head, and he pushed his glasses back up his nose, where it seemed they were constantly slipping.Zangan tore his eyes away from where Marle sat, now ignoring them both as she scanned through something on the laptop’s screen, and glanced over at Fuhito.The boy who ran the AVALANCHE operations couldn’t have been a day over nineteen, and Zangan wondered how the young prodigy managed to organize such efficient rebellions against the Shinra Electric Power Company all across the planet._

_Fuhito turned to Zangan, thumbing at his hairless chin, pulling the door open.“She’s a bit of an ice queen, but I think you’ll find you have a lot in common.Shinra killed her daughter, just like they killed yours.”_

Already, Tifa had a lot of questions.

“You knew Marle for that long?” she asked, setting her teacup down, shaking her head as if his words had completely befuddled her.“And… you had a daughter?”

Zangan heaved a heavy sigh, nodding up at the ceiling. 

“When I said my history with Shinra was complicated, I meant that I had been on one of their lists for a very, very long time,” Zangan rued in response, and he too set his teacup down, letting his hands fold together, thumbs brushing across the worn skin of his knuckles.“I had a daughter - her name was Eve, and she had been only seventeen when she and her mother were both killed when Shinra attacked their village in Wutai.I had been away in another village, on another continent, in fact, when the Shinra army burned the village to the ground and killed every civilian there.It was their first strike that would precede the Wutai War, and I was nowhere to be found, powerless to save my family.

“I was never a part of AVALANCHE, but in my younger years, I aided them both in Midgar and in Wutai many a time.After my family was murdered - after the war began - I was consumed by the desire to bring Shinra to account for the wrongs it had committed both against my family and against the planet.In those days, I convinced myself that I was training young fighters so the world would have defenses against the evils that Shinra was spreading throughout the world. I never wanted another man to know the despair, the sadness and the emptiness that came with losing those most precious loved ones to the power and greed of the Shinra Company.

“It was how I had come to know Marle. She was from one of Midgar’s oldest original villages - Shiva, I can’t even remember its name now - and she was a young widower whose husband died many years before in an automobile accident.She had a daughter who died a year before I met her, a year before she joined AVALANCHE.Her daughter, though, had been killed during the construction of the Sector Six plate.A portion of it crashed during Midgar’s erection, and many who were living in the old villages where the city’s plates were being built overhead were trapped in the rubble.I didn’t know it when I first met Marle, of course, but Fuhito explained it quickly enough.Ever since then, Tifa, Marle and I became very close friends.”

Tifa’s tea was growing cold, but she found that she could not tear her eyes or her complete attention away from Zangan, who leaned back against the couch after sharing that bit of information, his dark stare suddenly aimed at the window, drinking in the sun’s rays as they peered through the seam in the curtains.Tifa had wondered why Zangan appeared so suddenly at Marle’s funeral after years of invisibility, and he had avoided her question when she’d asked under the snowfall in the cemetery that afternoon.But now, watching as the old man began to unload his burdens, small puzzle pieces were beginning to fall together, painting a picture of the past that Tifa had never been privy to.

Selfishly, she wondered how her own piece fit into the whole of the tapestry.

As if sensing her thoughts, Zangan turned to her then, leveling his dark gaze at hers, and Tifa could see how strained and wet his eyes were, glassy and filmed over.It seemed that unloading all of this was having a far greater toll on him than he had anticipated, and it was a long moment before he felt secure enough to continue.

“I was on Shinra’s lists for years, but my transience made me a difficult target to pursue, and I had a large following of students who protected me for many years,” Zangan continued, leaning forward to tentatively reach for his mug again.“After Nibelheim burned to the ground, though, I knew that things with the Company would only get worse.I would have run at that moment, if it were not for you, Tifa.I had to make sure you were safe, and Marle was the only person on the planet I trusted with your care.But I could never stay in Midgar the way that Marle did.She was always so much braver than I was.”

_It was no more than half an hour later when the military-style transport crossed back into Sector7, clearing the security gate where the edge of the Wastelands met the city proper.The Shinra grunt who sat in the front seat had said not a word to Zangan, only eyeing him through the visor of his helmet in the rearview mirror as Zangan climbed into the back, lowering the young girl he carried gently from his back.Zangan had checked the license plate of the vehicle and knew that the security officer was a trusted man on the inside that his contact had hired.Still, Zangan remained alert as his eyes scanned outside of the windshield, the security gate’s flashing red lights twinkling overhead._

_The security officer who was driving the vehicle stopped at the gate and rolled his window down, and Zangan could hear his muffled grumblings to another officer who stood at the gate.This officer was dressed in red, a large rifle in hand. The officer peered into the window, and Zangan sank further back into the shadows.Satisfied, the officer waved his arm, indicating they could pass, and his driver rolled up his window and peeled on to the stretch of highway into Midgar, soon veering onto the juncture that led to the Sector7 slums._

_The military transport rolled through the unpaved roads of the slums, which narrowed the further they traveled.Even at the late hour, Zangan could see that the night had not quieted the streets of Sector7, as people milled about through the streets, traversing between all-night street vendors and pubs._

_Zangan glanced down at the too-still form of the teenage girl who was laid across the bed of the truck, thick blankets covering her and pulled up to her chin.At first glance, it appeared that she was merely encased in a deep, peaceful slumber, but Zangan was too dreadfully aware that this was not the case.She was unconscious, very likely in a coma induced by the fatal nature of her wounds.As the truck rolled to a stop outside of a small clinic, Zangan chanced pulling the thick covers away from her form, revealing her upper body and the violent gash that was still leaking thick blood through the gauze he’d pressed to it to stave off blood loss._

_The door of the Shinra transport slid open, the grunt staring at him expectantly.The appearance of the vehicle in the slums had alarmed some of the residents in the streets, and it had caused a small crowd to form, though they maintained a respectable distance, tentative and unsure of its sudden purpose in the slums.Zangan nodded at the grunt, then crouched carefully beside Tifa, scooping her in his arms as if she were weightless, before climbing out of the vehicle._

_Marle appeared a moment later, her hair gray now, a thick shock that was pulled away from her face with a tight red headband.It had been almost ten years since Zangan had seen her last, and she had begun to show the signs of age in the wrinkles that were pressed into the corners of her eyes, in the looseness of the flesh at her jaw and neck.But her stare was as penetrating and scrutinizing as ever, and Zangan thought she looked just as lovely as she had when he had first met her over twenty years ago._

_“I can’t stay,” were the first words out of Zangan’s mouth, and Marle’s shoulders snapped back as if she had been struck._

_“What else is new?” she spat at him, and Zangan felt his heart drop to his guts at the flippant harshness in her tone.But Marle had already moved on.“Bring the girl here.”_

_It was the last time that Zangan would visit Midgar for at least fifteen years, and he would never see Marle alive again._

Tifa expelled a long, heavy breath when Zangan finally fell quiet, and she realized somewhat absently that she had not touched her tea at all since he began.Zangan was facing the window again, his features relaxed into a somber, reflective quietude, as if he were watching a film reel unfold somewhere in front of him that only he could see.Sadness and misery etched into the lines of his face, filtering over him in heavy waves that she could feel from where she sat beside him.

“I spoke with Marle a few times those next few years, just to make sure you were alright,” Zangan paused, and he turned his gaze away from the window to look at her.“She loved you like you were her own daughter, Tifa.I could never thank her enough for what she had done by taking you in.”

Tifa sat against the back of the couch as his words draped over her, and found herself thinking back on her years in Sector7 as a teenager.Her earliest memory was coming to in Marle’s cramped apartment, her chest wrapped in thick bandages, a dull ache square in its center.She remembered Marle sitting over her, remembered the sudden panic she felt as she tried to orient herself and figure out where she was and how she came to be there.She remembered the way that Marle had gently, but firmly explained, careful to not reignite her traumas but also not skirting around the cold, hard truths of Nibelheim and the nature of her injury.And she recalled how Marle had waited patiently for Tifa to digest everything before she began, in a calm, efficient manner, to explain how things were going to have to work if Tifa expected to survive in Midgar.

The conversation had become far too heavy, it seemed, and Zangan fell silent, draining his tea and folding his hands in his lap, his fingers running across the tops of his knuckles again.Tifa fidgeted in her seat, and decided to lean forward and finish her cold tea.

“Have you kept up with your training?” Zangan asked after a long moment.

The shift in conversation was a welcome one, and Tifa explained the nature of her work with Seventh Heaven and how only recently she had refocused on her training.She explained that she had even begun to fight for sport, striving for the Spring World Championship in mixed martial arts that was to be held later that year in the Gold Saucer.

Zangan was immediately piqued by this, sitting up straighter than he’d had throughout her entire visit.

“I’ll be staying here in Kalm for some time,” He told her, a new glint shining in his eyes.“You know I would be happy to help my greatest pupil prepare for such a challenge.”

Tifa blushed, a grin spreading sloppily across her face.“I would love that, Zangan.My husband, Cloud, is my official trainer, but working with you again is an honor I could never refuse.”

Zangan nodded, and Tifa noticed the purely joyful smile that spread across his face, a smile that she had not seen since they’d reconnected.

“The honor would be mine.”

* * *

Yule came and went with fresh snowfalls, leaving Junon a landscape of white that was punctured by the twinkling, colorful fairy lights on local homes and the city’s holiday decorations that covered lampposts and the facades of buildings. Tifa was up early that morning, turning on the oven for the roast and the ham, cutting vegetables and mixing dough for rolls and pies, butterflying shrimp for chilling over ice in the fridge.She left Cloud and the kids in bed, knowing they would rise soon, smelling coffee and food and eager to open their gifts that sat under the tree beside Tifa’s piano. 

Tifa had smiled to herself as she worked through that morning, thinking about the bittersweet blessings of the last few weeks.While she still mourned Marle’s abrupt passing, Tifa had grown close again to Zangan and had visited him twice more after their first meeting.He shared with her more stories of his travels around the planet over the years, stories of Marle as a young revolutionary, stories of a courtship between him and Marle that had never fully materialized thanks to his never-ending transience.

Cloud was not happy about Zangan’s reappearance in Tifa’s life, and he was even less happy about Tifa’s invitation for him to join them for Yule dinner.Cloud’s dismay was evident from the moment of Zangan’s sudden appearance at Marle’s funeral, and even on the ride home, he had given Tifa a surly glance when she’d returned from talking with him in the snow.But when she’d revealed that Zangan was staying close by, and that she was even beginning to spend time with him, he’d snapped.

“Didn’t that man leave you alone in Midgar?” he’d demanded one evening when they were training in the basement together.

“That was years ago, Cloud,” Tifa had countered, dusting fresh talcum into her hands before moving on to the weights to practice deadlifts. “And he had good reason.Shinra was after him, just as they were after all of us in those days.”

“You were fifteen,” Cloud complained, the green rim around his pupils glowing brightly.“Who abandons a fifteen-year-old who is gravely wounded?What if you died?”

Tifa thought his protestations were exaggerated, but she knew that deep inside, Cloud tied the entire event, including Zangan’s departure from Tifa in Midgar, to his own inability to protect her that day in Nibelheim.She could tell by the wildness in his eyes that he was angry and maybe even insecure about Zangan’s reappearance, and she did not make mention of her sensei again to avoid flaring his mood. But there was no rescinding his invitation to their home for dinner. Zangan had been the first of their invited guests to arrive that evening, and his impressive stature, the impetus and magnitude of his name and reputation, and his ease with falling into storytelling, especially about Tifa as a young fighter, quickly enraptured Aster, Marlene, and Denzel’s attention.By the time Barret arrived, just before Tifa was ready to set dinner out on the table, Zangan was as comfortable with their children as if he had known them for years.Cloud, on the other hand, made himself scarce the entire night.Throughout dinner he was quiet as the family ate, letting Barret and Zangan dominate the conversation as they traded war stories of their anti-Shinra days, as they recounted their fondest memories of Marle, as they lauded Tifa’s skills as a martial artist.When the discussion turned to her current competition in the World Championship rankings, Zangan casually re-offered to assist with her training, insisting on attending her next matches.Tifa did not miss the way that Cloud’s eyes had flashed at that, nor did she miss how he remained mostly silent for the rest of the evening, even long after Zangan had departed and Barret had crashed on the couch.

Tifa didn’t make mention of Zangan much more after that, though she continued to visit her former sensei whenever she would make her rounds to Kalm.She did not share with Cloud how she had begun to spend some of her free time.

Once the New Year passed, the ranking fights began to pick up again with increased frequency as the Championship drew nearer that early April.Tifa renewed her training efforts with vigor, and while she continued training with Cloud, she was quietly taking notes from Zangan and demonstrating her stances and parries to him for his feedback.

It was early January when the quarterfinals were announced, and as one of the top-ranking fighters in her weight class, Tifa was matched against an opponent from Mideel whose stats were stacked and impressive.She put everything she had into training for that match, and as she stepped out into the gymnasium from the locker room that night, pulling at her gloves and clapping away dust clouds of talcum, she realized how high the stakes were becoming.The quarterfinal matches were the first significant rounds of ranking fights in the entire competition, and this fact was reflected in the packed stands of the arena in Midgar.Tifa winced against the flashbulbs of cameras that winked at her as she approached the ring, making note of the sports reporters who crowded the sidelines with paper and pen in hand.Scotch and Kotch were no longer the only fight club managers on hand, Tifa realized, but the convergence at the quarterfinals had drawn the interest of several other managers and promoters in the MMA circuit. Tifa’s name and undefeated record were generating more and more interest, and this was the most highly attended match she had participated in yet.She was astonished to see not only her family and friends in the stands but also quite a few other familiar faces and acquaintances - Johnny, Lucinda, and Mario were all in the stands, as were Zangan, Barret, and of course, Yuffie.Marlene and Denzel had already returned to university, but Aster was there, sandwiched between Yuffie and Barret, waving and leaping to her feet when Tifa climbed the ropes with Cloud at her side.

Over the deafening roar of the crown, hearing the bells clang in the background signaling the start of the fight, Tifa turned, only to have her eyes stop on row of black that was punctured by a white blazer in the very far back of the stands.

Rufus Shinra was seated in the center of the row, leaned back in his seat, his wrist under his chin.From the distance, it was difficult to make him out, but Tifa could not miss the way he stood out like a sore thumb, overdressed in a clean white suit.He was staring directly at her, and even from here, Tifa could make out the ice that was crystallized in his blue eyes.She turned away from him, not missing the smirk that spread across his face when their eyes met.

Rufus Shinra.His was a name she was familiar with, but a face she hadn’t seen in years.All she knew was his work with the WRO that came mainly in the form of his financials, gil poured into coffers that kept the enterprise moving and kept endeavors like her own business growing.She turned away from him quickly, working to expel him from her mind as she faced her opponent.

The fight was brutal and it came down to the wire.Tifa’s opponent, Marie St. James, a dark-skinned, stocky kickboxer who was almost a half a foot taller than Tifa, packed a powerful punch behind her fists, and despite Tifa’s acrobatics and swift maneuvers, Marie was surprisingly swift and evasive, and more than once landed a staggering punch to Tifa’s jaw that sent her whirling back into the ropes, Cloud hovering at the sidelines, concern scrawled across his face. Ninety seconds into the third round, Tifa was feeling like she might gas out, her stamina sucked clean by the building anxiety and panic of the fight that was crowding around her.As she stumbled backward from a fresh onslaught, Tifa tossed a knowing glance at Cloud, who was currently leaning over the ropes, gripping them tightly in both hands. 

The buzzer suddenly went off, and Tifa found herself breathing a sigh of relief, even though the fight was far from over.In the flash of a second, just as Tifa was about to turn for the corner of the ring where Cloud stood waiting with a towel, Marie lifted a stout leg and flung it in her direction.Reacting on pure, raw instinct, Tifa ducked, closing in on Marie, and lifted her right arm, firing a fist into the center of Marie’s face with the precision of an arrow.With a small leap from her hastily thrown together stance and a twist of her shoulders, Tifa sent all of the remaining force that lived in her bones through that final punch, hearing the sharp crack of Marie’s nose as it splintered against the leather covering Tifa’s fist.Her opponent dropped like a rag doll to the mat, her trainer scrambling through the ropes as the referee ran to her side before declaring the knockout and sending the crowd into a screaming whirlwind.

Her heartbeat was pounding a rush into Tifa’s ears as Cloud pulled her into the corner, grinning wildly at her as he wiped the blood away from her nose and mouth, his touch as gentle and as careful as if he were about to bring her to bed.Tifa could hardly think straight, even though she knew that she had won the fight.Marie’s connections with her temple had sent her into a deep tizzy, and she could only offer a faint smile to Cloud as he sat her down and tended to her wounds while her friends and family waited at the ringside, cheering her consecutive victories.

After the fight had been called and the two combatants were healed at ringside, Tifa had ventured into the locker room to peel the bandages from her hands and wrists and to pack up her things.On her way out, she stopped in front of one the full-length mirrors, observing her reflection - the puffiness from the bruise under her left eye, the fat, red split in her bottom lip, the dark line of blood that trailed across the side of her temple.But she also noted the firm definition in her arms and the lines of her abdomen, the powerful bulge of her thigh muscles.Despite the dragged out nature of the fight, she had been victorious, and the proof of it lived in the very lines of her body.

Thinking of Zangan as she walked out, Tifa knew that things were only going to get harder from here on out, and she made a mental note to discuss her training with him as the fights were only bound to grow more challenging.

Tifa was on her way to the parking lot outside of the arena to meet Cloud and the others when she found herself stopping short in the hallway just short of the exit.Standing against the wall, a few paces away from the door, a bouquet of white roses in hand, was Rufus Shinra.

Time had treated Rufus well, Tifa realized as she stopped a few feet away from him, careful not to come any closer.She had not seen him in several years; and despite the fact that he secretly funded several of the loans that had funneled cash into her businesses, there had never been a need for them to interact over the years.He still retained the same dashing, slick handsomeness of his youth, though tiny lines were beginning to emerge at the corners of his eyes.His hair was still its same brassy gold, his eyes the same piercing, pale blue that could freeze a person in place with their ice.And while Rufus kept his personal life quiet and mostly out of the headlines, Tifa knew that he’d married and divorced some wealthy, raven-haired socialite who was the kind of personality who did throw his name about in the tabloids from time to time.It was more information than she needed about a man who she’d once despised but now felt largely dispassionate about.

“Tifa Lockhart,” Rufus greeted, his voice a smooth, silvery baritone, pushing away from the wall and holding the bouquet of flowers out to her.

“Have you been the one buying those for me?” Tifa asked immediately, shouldering her gym bag and gesturing to the flowers.

“They suit you,” he offered, thrusting the bouquet towards her.She hesitated for a long moment before accepting them, and when she finally took them from his grip, she snatched them with a little more force than necessary.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded, and she found herself involuntarily flexing her own fist at her side.

Rufus’ mouth slid into an easy, languid smirk, one that was disarming and unnerving as his pale blue eyes shifted and fell to her face before slipping over her entire body.Instinctively, Tifa pulled at her coat, feeling somehow exposed even beneath its thick layers.

“I’m not one for this kind of sport, to be perfectly honest with you, Lockhart,” he replied, tilting his head to one side and causing a thick strand of strawberry blond hair to fall into his face.“But ever since Reeve informed me of your rise throughout this competition, I’ve been intrigued by your performance.I’ve never seen a woman fight quite the way that you do.I must say, you are very impressive.”

Tifa said nothing.

Rufus’ smirk somehow grew longer, and Tifa felt the exact moment that her heart stopped beating, seizing up into a tight chain in her chest as she watched him step closer to her, too uncomfortably close, until there where mere inches separating their faces.

“I’m not convinced that Strife is able to provide for a woman like you,”Rufus was saying, his voice now dropped several octaves,and Tifa’s entire body froze when she felt his long, sinuous fingertips gently ghost over her left shoulder, drawing a careful but easy line down her arm before falling away, back to his side.“But if there is anything that you ever need that he can’t give you, all you have to do is ask.”

Tifa held her breath, wanting to strike Rufus where he stood, wanting to knock him into the floor with a twirl of her ankle the way she’d attacked her opponent in the ring not long ago.Instead, she swallowed, buying herself time to gather her composure, and took a step back from him, repulsed by the scent of his cologne that was suddenly suffocating her, and pierced by the violent, racing sky blue of his eyes that were trying to pin her to the ground where she stood.

Rufus stared a moment longer, and he seemed fully aware of her discomfort, his smirk deepening and pulling at the corners of his lips.After a long moment of silence,he reached for the door behind him, opening up the exit to the lot outside.

“I suppose I should be going,” he said to her, keeping his eyes connected with hers.“After you.”

Tifa held her silence, stiffening her spine as she walked past him, her eyes focused forward and torn away from the steel in his stare.As she stepped into the cold night air, she caught sight of Cloud waiting by her sedan across the lot, leaning against the driver’s side door while Barret, Yuffie, and Aster chatted animatedly by the trunk.She saw his eyes widen when Rufus appeared behind her before cutting off to the left and disappearing into the night.

When he was gone, Tifa dumped the white roses into a trashcan nearby before making her way to the car, where Cloud had crossed his arms over his chest, staring at her intently.

* * *

The next several weeks stretched on in February, and the semi-finals were fast approaching in March.The matches were to be a definitive moment in the rankings, determining which fighters would proceed to the Spring World Championships to battle for the title.Tifa was more determined than ever to succeed, and threw most of her energy behind her training, loosening her reigns on Johnny and Lucinda and spending less time monitoring the day-to-day business of the bars.She spent many of her mornings with Master Zangan in Kalm, and he had even begun to walk her through many of her moves, critiquing her stances and her execution.With the precision of his expertise, Tifa found that a great deal of her technique was actually lacking.

“Tifa,” Zangan stopped her one afternoon where they were practicing in a park in Kalm.Although Zangan was nearly eighty and struggled to move with any serious level of speed or strength, he was still fully capable of issuing her commands and could even gently spar with her by demonstrating evasive moves as she twirled through dive kicks and cartwheels.“Your precision with some of these moves is off.You need to refocus.Strike hard, no mercy.If you leave even an inch of an opening for your opponent, they will break you down.You cannot leave room for error and you cannot lose concentration!”

Tifa stopped, breathing out a heavy sigh at his reproach.“What do you want me to do, Master Zangan?”

Zangan folded his arms over his chest, nodding his head at her.“Tifa, forgive me if I am crossing a line here.But your husband is no expert in Zangan-Ryu.Only I am the expert in this art.”

Tifa chewed her bottom lip, waiting for him to continue.

“Forgive me,” he repeated again, “But I believe that I should pick up your training moving forward if you wish to compete seriously in the upcoming fights.The semifinals will pit you against combatants from the Western Continent, and I know better than anyone on this planet how challenging that will be.You must be at your absolute pinnacle.I watched your husband directing you during your last fight.He knows nothing about Zangan-Ryu.”

Tifa expelled a heavy breath at his forthrightness, letting her eyes fall closed.She felt her muscles straining under the intensity of that morning’s workout, a deep ache beginning to settle somewhere above her bones.The weight of Zangan’s words were rendering her suddenly weak and wanting to collapse into the grass in a heap.

Cloud was not happy that Zangan had even returned.He certainly would not be happy if she decided to take up her training with him full time.

“I… I don’t know how he would feel about that,” she began softly, staring down at her boots, planted in the dirt.“He’s the only reason I even started to compete.He…he gave me something to fight for.I can’t do this without him.”

Zangan’s face softened considerably, and he dropped his arms from his chest, pulling his cloak back into place around his shoulders.“That is fair enough.I suppose a man like that is to be commended, even if he knows nothing about martial arts.”Zangan let out a low chuckle, shaking his head before continuing.“Why don’t we strike a bargain.Cloud and I can both train you together.It isn’t unheard of.He can continue to manage your matches and promotion, while I can focus on perfecting your form and your craft.He simply doesn’t have the skill nor the knowledge to do what I can with you, but that doesn’t mean we cannot work as a team.”

Tifa looked up, her breathing still leveling out from her efforts.She felt a small smile tug at the corners of her lips.Cloud may not have liked Zangan at all, but he couldn’t be so unreasonable as to not accept this agreement.

“I think that could work, Master,” Tifa conceded, a spark of brightness entering her voice that thrilled and surprised her.With Zangan training her full-time, there was no way that she wouldn’t be able to crush the semifinals and win the World Championship come spring.

“Excellent,”Zangan nodded, grinning at her, and Tifa found that she could not stop herself from running up to her sensei and colliding into him with a hug.

* * *

Cloud was very, very unreasonable.

Perhaps Tifa should have better gauged his mood when he arrived home that evening, before she confronted him with her suggestion.Perhaps she should have eased him into the idea a little more gently.Perhaps she should have tossed the idea entirely and not bothered him with it at all.Perhaps there were many things she should have done differently, but the simple fact was that she had not been prepared at all for his reaction to her proposition that Zangan join them in taking over the more mechanical aspects of her training while Cloud focused on the logistics.

“Are you serious?”

They were standing in the center of the home gym in the basement, Cloud pausing with a jump rope in hand. He tossed it to the floor and turned to stare at her, his blue eyes instantly ablaze, emerald flecks swirling in a pulsing glow at her across the room.Tifa self-consciously began to tug at the wristbands of her gloves.

“Cloud,” she began very softly, not liking the strain that had risen in his voice.“Zangan is the expert in the style of martial art that I am trained in.He designed it, in fact.There’s no one on this planet who knows it better, and already he has pointed out the flaws in my technique.The fights are getting harder and… I need to be perfect.”

Cloud rolled his eyes so hard, Tifa thought they might fly out of his skull.

“I don’t like that man,” Cloud growled at her, his voice low in his throat.“I don’t know why he’s even here, after all these years.”His eyes narrowed at her, and Tifa watched as he took a step forward, closing the distance between them.“Sometimes, I think that you’re too naive.Too trusting.You give people too much rope.”

Tifa flinched, stung by those words.“Naive? Cloud, this man trained me for years.He saved my life when I was about to die.There was no one else who could have carried me halfway across the world to safety.”

Cloud turned away from her at that, staring down at the floor.She saw the muscles in his arms tighten and snap, his fingers curling dangerously as he clenched his hands into fists.

“You’re right about that,” he responded to her regretfully, his eyes refusing to meet hers.“I failed you that day.”

Tifa closed her eyes, disbelieving in the turn of the conversation.She felt a sudden and dull ache, a ghostlike sort of pain, hovering over the center of her chest, right where her scar from that night laid. Without thinking, she pressed her palm there as if to push away the deep hurt that was latched onto her imagination.

“Cloud, this isn’t about-“

He waved a hand in the air dismissively, but Tifa could see from the tense roll of his shoulders that her words had penetrated somewhere dark, unearthing painful memories that stabbed at them both and were better left to the cobwebs and shadows.The silence that began to stretch on between them became suffocating, and Tifa felt tears begin to prick the corners of her eyes as they darted in their sockets, watching his profile and waiting for him to respond.

After a long moment, Cloud turned to her again, and the ache in her chest began to throb at the scowl that was twisting his beautiful features.As angry as his expression suddenly appeared, Tifa saw a deep, hidden sadness in the cerulean orbs of his eyes, punctured by violent verdant speckles.Instinctively, she moved to step closer to him, an arm outstretched, but Cloud instantly backed away from her, widening the gap between them.

The glower he wore suddenly became wild, his eyes flashing, and Tifa watched him run his fingers through his mess of flaxen hair, the tension rising in him the longer they stood there in silence.Tifa felt like she was being pinned to the floor by the ferocity behind his stare.

“First Zangan,”Cloud spat, “And then Rufus.” 

At that, Tifa’s eyes snapped back up, genuinely intrigued by the sudden turn of the conversation.Cloud was crossing his arms over his chest.“You think I didn’t know, Tifa? That I wouldn’t find out?”

“What?”Tifa countered, flabbergasted and caught off guard.“Rufus is just - he’s - I threw his flowers in the trash, Cloud.I don’t know why he keeps sending them to me but - “

“I know about the loans,” Cloud sneered, and Tifa felt as if she had collided with a brick wall.

“What? How did you -“

Cloud was suddenly wearing an angry simper, one bereft completely of any amusement.He took another step closer to Tifa, and suddenly her heart was ricocheting so wildly in her chest she was afraid it might leap right out of her mouth and crash to the floor, flopping about like a fish out of water.

“Oh, Rufus made sure to casually mention it to me when I ran into him at your last match,”Cloud’s voice was full of venom now, and he was stepping even closer to Tifa, his eyes glowing bright like furious blue beacons.“Asked me how the businesses were doing and to never hesitate to let him know if we ever needed another little boost.Did you put any of that gil into the delivery service?”

“Cloud, I -“Tifa’s tongue was a thick, clumsy mass in her mouth, and her words sounded slurred and dry even as she spoke them, her brain short-circuiting on the completion of that thought.

“I can’t believe you kept this from me for _years_ ,” he hissed, and Tifa saw that the anger in his eyes had leveled out and was replaced with a deep hurt, a sadness and a regrettable resignation.She saw the complete shattering of his trust in her right there in the sparkling shimmers of his beautiful blue eyes, and the ache in her chest flared so painfully she almost fell to her knees.

“Cloud, please. Let me explain.Reeve - “

Cloud’s hand was in the air again, cutting Tifa off mid-sentence.She watched him as he shook his head one time in dismay.

“Save it.What’s done is done.If I see Rufus at another one of your matches, I’m not sure what I might do.”Cloud leveled his gaze with hers, and Tifa saw the wildness return, the blue darkening to the shadowy color of midnight steel as the jealousy and rage returned to infiltrate his stare.Her mouth was still hanging open, but within an instant, Cloud was turning away, making for the stairs. 

“Train with Master Zangan if you want,” he called over his shoulder, before disappearing upstairs.

Tifa stood frozen in place, undone by what had just transpired in the space of a few minutes, unraveling so many threads that had been holding her together for so long.She and Cloud almost never fought, and never over anything as serious as this.She knew that he hated Rufus, knew that he was prone to possession and jealousy, knew that he was sensitive about the traumas of their past.But she would have never expected for things to erupt this way.

In the distance, Tifa heard the faint roar of his motorcycle as the engine turned over and came to life, and as she heard his tires peel out of the driveway,she finally did crumble to her knees, her hands flying to her face as the tears began to fall, heavy and broken and loud between the cracks of her fingers.

* * *

In the days following their argument, Cloud maintained his distance from Tifa, punishing her with silence.It was brutal and torturous, leaving her feeling like they were physically separated from one another, even though they sat across from each other at dinner and laid side by side in bed at night, his back to her as he faced the wall.He found excuses to come home late from work, or spent his entire days off in the garage, avoiding her and not giving himself too many reasons to be in the same room as she was.They’d exchanged less than a handful of words over the course of the next week and a half, and Tifa felt a desperate, desolate longing at the absence of his touch, his smiles, his sweet words and the press of his lips to hers.More than once she had thought she had mustered the courage to open the wounds again and repair the void between them, knowing that she could not go on any longer like this.But every time she stopped to open her mouth, her resolve faltered, her feelings burying themselves deep under layers of fear and guilt. She began to hate herself for her weakness, for letting one small complication between them snag and rip at the seams of their marriage.Whenever her eyes did meet with Cloud’s, she saw the softness rise there, and a warm spark of hope would flare in her chest, ignited by the prospect that he might turn to her with forgiveness and love in his embrace.But ultimately, he would give up and turn away, his shoulders heaving as if in defeat, and Tifa knew that this was on her to repair.

But she needed to get through the semifinals, which was only a day away.

Cloud had abandoned training with Tifa, but had continued to work her matches with the MFC.Matters relating to the upcoming fight were the extent of their conversations in those days that she prepared for the semifinals, and Tifa latched on to every word she shared with Cloud, looking for an opening to bridge the rift that was growing between them.But Cloud always moved on with the conversation quickly, sticking to business, and leaving Tifa stumbling through her broken thoughts and feelings.

The semifinals were held in Midgar that weekend, and as Tifa readied herself in the locker, listening to the sounds of the crowd in the arena beyond, she realized that despite the turmoil in her personal life over the last few weeks - Marle’s death, Zangan’s sudden reappearance, her painful fight with Cloud - she was on the brink of a major accomplishment. Her name was garnering worldwide interest.All of her friends were expected to attend this match, including Cid and Nanaki, and Cid had even picked Marlene up from Cosmo Canyon so that she could attend.Denzel, who attended school in Midgar, was there, as was Yuffie and even Reeve Tuesti.

Her opponent was a thirty-year-old Muay Thai fighter from Wutai named Mindy Lin, the first opponent she faced who was close to her in age. Tifa had read her stats and knew that Lin had a nefarious reputation as an underground fighter who only recently began to compete legitimately.Reviewing the stats, Zangan had warned Tifa that underground fighters were notorious for fighting dirty, and that she had best summon all of her focus for this fight.

Leaning against a wall in the locker room as she wrapped her palms with heavy gauze, Tifa eyed Mindy across the room as she went through her own preparation for the match, sizing her up and already making mental calculations for her attacks in the ring.Unlike some of her previous opponents, Mindy was lithe and thin, possessing a figure more appropriate for a ballerina than a boxer.She was graceful even as she unpacked her gloves and slid out of her sweatshirt, revealing a sports bra banded across a long, slender torso.Her hair was dark and fluid, and Tifa watched as she twisted it up into a bun high on her head, a thick rope of black silk that rivaled Tifa’s own locks.And she was pretty.Too pretty for a woman who was about to get her face smashed to bits.

In the stadium, the spotlights were blinding, the flashbulbs of cameras disorienting, the roar of the hype music deafening.Tifa heard the chaotic chorus of chants that seemed to scream from every direction towards her and her opponent as they climbed onto opposite sides of the ring, half calling out her name and the other half cheering for Lin.So many promoters from all over the world were in attendance at this match, and Tifa noted the long table of them, including Scotch and Kotch, where deals were cut across the table over the outcome of the match.Tifa found herself wondering idly how much money was being placed on her name.

In the darkness, Tifa searched the front row for her friends and family.She spotted Yuffie first, who was out of her seat, jumping up and down and screaming at the top of her lungs.Aster was at her side, clapping wildly, and Tifa blew a kiss to her when their eyes met, before she waved at the rest of her family and friends who were crowded in the row, Nanaki seated on his haunches on the floor in front of them.

Tifa allowed herself the quick opportunity to search the stands for Rufus, but if he was present, she could not make him out, and that was enough to let her breathe a little easier.She did not take idle Cloud’s threats at all.

Zangan had taken up Cloud’s usual position at the side of the ring, and miffed with his appearance, Cloud hovered by the ring but stayed a safe distance away from Zangan.Cloud had refused to cooperate with Zangan at all as they prepared for the match, and Tifa found his behavior embarrassing and childish.Nonetheless, when her eyes finally connected with her husband’s after she climbed into the ring behind Lin, she couldn’t help but offer him a tiny smile, and her heart somersaulted when he hesitantly returned it before he stopped himself with a scowl and turned away.

At the shrill ring of the bell, the fight began, and Tifa was immediately on the offensive.Mindy Lin moved quickly and gracefully and was at her throat with attacks, starting with a full force jab that aimed straight for Tifa’s nose and was narrowly missed by a quick dodge and twist of her shoulders.They danced around each other, the shouts in the stands raising to a fever pitch as Tifa felt herself being practically chased around the ring by her opponent.Mindy Lin was fast, too fast, moving like lighting through the ring and leaving Tifa completely out of breath and with two solid shots to the ribcage that had left her staggering towards the ropes by the end of the first round.

She conferred with Zangan briefly in the interlude, listening to him criticize her defensive maneuvers and advise her on her parries and kicks and her next best chance to find an opening to take Mindy down, pressing a bag of ice into her side.Tifa just nodded and absorbed his words, storing the information away for retrieval when she reentered the ring.As he checked her jaw for damage, Tifa let her eyes wander to the side of the ring where Cloud stood just a few feet away, his arms folded over his chest as he watched her intently, his blue eyes glowing faintly under the spotlights of the arena.

The fight dragged on for six rounds, and ninety seconds into the sixth, Tifa was beginning to feel the effects of the wear and tear on her body, muscles screaming for reprieve, lungs burning as they searched for new oxygen.She was running out of stamina, and she had taken so many hits to the face and ribs that her white tank top was covered in blood.She’d managed to roundhouse Mindy enough times to bruise her face and tear an ugly split in her jaw, but neither woman had gone down yet.It was becoming a knuckle drag, and Tifa focused all of her remaining energy on finding an opening to take Mindy down once and for all.

Time was warped in a fight.Seconds could pass that felt like hours to a fighter who was wrapped in the thrill and the adrenaline of combat, watching their opponent spin and twirl around them.The rest of the world became dead to Tifa, a blur that didn’t exist, and her sole focus remained on Mindy who twirled and kicked and danced her way around her, sending her fist lower and lower toward her midsection. Tifa grit her teeth against the pain, seeing red at the borders of her vision.She snapped her wrist once, balling her fist up against the squeal of the leather of her gloves, just as Mindy lifted a long, shapely leg and flung it at the side of Tifa’s face.In the same moment, Tifa dove with both fists, and she felt Mindy’s sneaker split open the side of her face and crack her nose in two places just as her fists both connected with flesh and bone, one uppercutting Mindy’s jaw and sending a streamer of blood into the air, staining the mat instantly with splatters of dark red, the other colliding with the tender underside of her ribcage, rearranging her pancreas and sending it into her spleen.The result was both fighters spinning away from each other in a tangle of disorderly limbs and violent whirls, both colliding into the mat, Mindy crashing from the dual assaults of Tifa’s fists, Tifa collapsing in a sprawl from Mindy’s kick, her hands instantly trying to hold together the broken pieces of her face.

“Goddamn,” Cid was cursing, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth, Barret shaking his head in stunned silence beside him.

Cloud climbed up the ropes and was shouting her name, but two referees were in the ring now, one blocking him from entering and the other hovering over Tifa and Mindy where they both were plummeted heaps on the mat.Hearing his voice calling for her, Tifa tried to pull through the fog and the staggering pain, tried everything in her power to push herself to her knees and then her feet.But she could not lift her head; she could hardly see out of the thick red haze that was penetrating her vision.She heard Zangan shouting at the referees, heard the chants of the crowd and the screech of the buzzer as it rang out, a blare that pounded fresh pain into her skull.As she fell back against the mat, staring up at the bright lights overhead, she felt the caress of sleep welcoming her to a peaceful rest somewhere far, far away, where it was dark and quiet and tranquil and where nothing hurt, neither in her muscles or flesh nor inside of her broken and bruised heart.

The last thing Tifa heard before she passed out was a stark shout from the referee who hovered over her.

“Double KO!”

——————

Cloud discarded his mistrust of Zangan long enough to help him repair Tifa’s face after the match. They’d dragged Tifa out of the ring and tended to her in the silence of the locker room, and Tifa had been so staggered by the fight that she was barely conscious, unable to keep her eyes open beyond half-lids. Zangan cursed repeatedly as he snapped her nose back into place, sending a jolt of pain through her skull that reawakened her, if only for a few stupefying moments.Cloud hovered and watched, holding her back against his chest to steady her and keep her from falling as Zangan wiped at the split in her jaw, pouring a potion into her mouth.

“She’s probably concussed,” she heard Zangan saying over the dull ache in her temples.“You’ll need to keep an eye on her for a few days.No fighting or training until I’ve had a chance to make certain she’s passed this.”

Cloud only grunted in response, and Tifa let her head roll back against his chest.

“They called a draw,” Zangan continued with a heavy sigh, pressing cotton to Tifa’s cheek.“It’s not the best outcome for her record, but at least it won’t keep her out of the Championships.”

In the end, Tifa let Cloud carry her out of the arena and to the car, Aster at his heels, asking over and over again if mom was going to be alright.Marlene had followed them to the car, Denzel a few paces behind her, peering over Cloud’s shoulder as he tucked Tifa carefully into the front seat of the vehicle.Tifa could barely register her voice over the mist that was still floating through her brain, though she did recognize Cid’s shout from behind for Marlene to hurry the hell up before he left her ass in Midgar.

The ride home was silent, and Tifa was falling back into the foggy, nebulous state of sleep that only a blow to the head could induce.When she felt the car roll to a stop, the engine cutting off, she opened her eyes slowly again to stare up at her home through the windshield, tall against the darkness of the Junon night.Within an instant, the door was opening, and Cloud was at her side, reaching in for her.

“Can you stand?” he asked her, but Tifa could barely shake her head in response, and simply let her skull fall back against the headrest, closing her eyes again.

She felt his strong, powerful arms reach into the car once more and scoop her up, and she let him cradle her close to his chest as he pulled her out of the car.Aster was at his side, pulling on her wrist, and Tifa opened her eyes to glance down at her.

“Mom?” Her daughter’s blue eyes were wide disks, searching her face and pleading.Tifa offered her a small, reassuring smile before she let her head fall back against Cloud’s chest.

“I’m going to be okay,” she mustered words for the first time since she had fallen to the mat inside of the ring. 

Inside of the house, Cloud carefully laid Tifa on their bed.She was still drifting in and out of sleep, trying to piece together the last moments of the fight, trying to remember where things had gone wrong and what she could have possibly done differently.Her thoughts were laced with thoughts of Cloud, thoughts of his angry glowers and the heavy silence he moped through the house with over the last few days. She felt a deep, penetrating sadness fall over her as her head lolled against her pillow in a dizzy spin; instantly she craved his touch, to be against the firm weight of his powerful chest again.

She wasn’t awake when Cloud returned to the room.She wasn’t conscious when Cloud sat next to her on the bed, gently peeling away the layers of her dirty and bloodied attire, tossing them away.She wasn’t lucid when he pulled one of his own teeshirts over her head, gently smoothing her hair away from her face before he tucked her into bed under the sheets.

She was still knocked out, still deep in the haze of a brain trauma-induced sleep when Cloud laid down beside her, draping one arm over her protectively, whispering a silent apology to her before he pressed a kiss to the side of her temple and fell asleep beside her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're still here, thank you for reading. I promise that this story has a HEA, they are the only kinds of stories I write.
> 
> I need to make a note about the quote in Reeve's eulogy, it is actually a direct quote from Charles Dickens' _A Tale of Two Cities._ I was once a high school English teacher and taught that book several times. It is about the juxtaposition of oppression and wealth and riches against the backdrop of the French Revolution, one of the greatest examples of Marxist resistance against class inequity in world history. This quote is also read by Commissioner Gordon at Bruce Wayne's "funeral" at the end of Christopher Nolan's _The Dark Knight Rises_ , my favorite trilogy probably in the entire Batman universe. I thought, considering the history of Midgar and my headcanons about Marle, that it would be fitting.
> 
> Thanks again for reading.


	4. I Am Phenomenal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around for this story! And thank you so much for all of your wonderful comments and reviews and kudos, they quite literally give me life and inspire me to keep writing even when it is hard.
> 
> I want to give another big shout out and hug to my bestie and beta, [spaceOdementia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceOdementia/pseuds/spaceOdementia), who was was my lifeline throughout this entire fic. Please check out her work, because she is phenomenal! I love you girl!
> 
> This chapter is hella long but what else is new?
> 
> The title of this chapter comes from the Eminem song, [Phenomenal](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AU1Y8Ttvy4).
> 
> Enjoy.

The Comeback Kid

——————

Chapter Four

I Am Phenomenal

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2022 | March 21St

Tifa’s concussion kept her from training for several days, Zangan insisting that she take it easy despite the fact that she largely felt fine after a few more potions and the warm wave of a healing materia.She stayed at home for most of that time, the splits in her face beginning to heal and the bruising soon disappearing following her brief convalescence.By the third day, Tifa was working out quietly in the home gym without telling Zangan or Cloud, intent on not letting her body idle long enough to hamper her training efforts, and ultimately her chances at winning the World Championship that was just a few short weeks away.

For the first day or so after the semi-final match, Cloud kept a watchful eye on her, carefully checking her wounds as they healed and watching her with an eye trained for erratic, concussed movements while she ambled through the house.But his mood was still distant and strained, and they rarely exchanged words unless it was absolutely necessary - discussions about Tifa’s healing, talk about a permission slip for a field trip for Aster at school, chatter about dinner or which bill needed to be paid next.Cloud almost seemed afraid to let a conversation between them stretch on for longer than was necessary, moving on and finding a way to busy himself before their interactions could grow too awkward.And as the days continued to wear on in that fashion, there remained a cold, thin blue line of ice between them in their bed, where neither seemed bold enough to move beyond the separation that lived between them thanks to their lack of communication.Only in the middle of the night, as they tossed and turned in the throes of sleep, would they find each other drifting closer to one another again, only to quickly tear out of the tangle of their limbs when they woke, moving into their morning routine without acknowledgment of what was happening between them at all.

Tifa was distraught by the distance between her and Cloud, by the lack of communication, by the persistent stubbornness and inability to simply move past the rift that was now going on a three-week run.Even if they could move through their daily routine in quiet agreement, the lack of intimacy, the absence of warmth, the clipped and brief nature of their conversations was wholly unnatural. She felt as if they had become two oppositional stars, pushed apart from each other at the aphelion by their gravitational forces, two magnets both facing north and suddenly repelling one another despite that a deep part of them wanted and needed to connect, to slam together and coalesce.Yet in order for that to happen, one of them had to cave and speak.

Deep inside, Tifa knew that it was on her, no matter how much it hurt and how much she wanted to avoid it.As childish and surly as she knew Cloud was being over Zangan, Rufus was all her fault.She should never have kept the nature of those loans from him, no matter what Reeve had said about them.It was wrong, and he had every right to be angry and to mistrust her.And apparently, her acceptance of them over the years had given Rufus some sort of idea about her and the nature of her relationship with Cloud.

As much as she tried to put it out of her mind, Rufus’ behavior outside her quarter-final match, his sly coyness, the spark and flash of white steel against the ice in his eyes as he looked at her compelled her to believe that she might have done something to encourage his behavior.

The loans.The flowers.

And she still wore the scars of Marle’s passing on her heart, even as the days passed by with their rawness and the pain began to fade, the ache and the guilt still cut deep.

As the days passed following the semi-finals, Tifa contemplated her training as a distraction from the spin of inner turmoil that kept her wound up like the gears of a clock.The draw against Mindy Lin still wore heavily on her mind.While she was grateful that she had not lost, which would have disqualified her from the Championship, she was dismayed that she had been knocked out so brutally.She had not only underestimated her opponent, she realized, but she had been preoccupied with matters outside of the ring.

She couldn’t let it happen again.The stakes were now too high.

So while Cloud distracted himself with work, Tifa busied herself with her training, making sure that Aster had eaten, finished her homework, and was clean and ready for bed before she drifted into the basement to train alone, lifting weights, jumping rope, assaulting the speed bag and chopping her legs high as she alternated wild, high arcing kicks into the air or against the heavy punching bag.Every night, she worked herself into a sweat, stopping only when she heard the floorboards creak above her head when Cloud would finally come home, sometimes after ten or eleven at night.She would stand there and listen as his heavy boots tracked through the house, up the stairs to the second floor, and she would pause, wiping sweat from her brow or the top of her lip, feeling the stab of pain, her heart and her body urging her to drop everything, to run up the stairs and to stop him, to grab him by his waist and fall to her knees and beg him for forgiveness.But night after night, Tifa’s cowardice would reign victorious, and she would push down her desire and her longing for him, her desperation to reach out to him. She would focus instead on the condition of her body, on the soreness of her muscles as the lactic acid stretched them to new lengths, as her knuckles protested and calloused over, as the sweat pooled down the side of her neck and down her forehead into her eyes.She trained late into the night, stopping sometimes after midnight, before traipsing upstairs to climb silently into bed beside Cloud who was already asleep, facing the wall.

A little over a week after her draw against Mindy Lin, Zangan phoned her PHS, ready to resume her training.Tifa was elated, to say the least.The World Championship was a little less than three weeks away, and if she didn’t take advantage of every moment of training - especially under Master Zangan’s careful, perfected tutelage - there was a very good chance that she would not be good enough to compete against the opponent she would be matched against in the ring.

The drive to Kalm that morning, after she dropped Aster off at school, was a rainy, cold one.Late March on the Eastern Continent was often the time of year that the chills and frosts of winter began to break, ushering in warmer weather and the rainy season that would stretch on into late May.The sky that morning was a rich haze of indigos and aquas as the rainclouds fought against the sun for dominance of the horizon.

Zangan did not care what the weather was like when it came to training.Tifa had known this since she was a young girl, recalling the time she had trained with him in the midst of a rainstorm in the center of an orchard outside of the Shinra Mansion in Nibelheim. She had only been twelve, maybe thirteen, and Zangan had told her explicitly that the day she might need to use her skills would not be the day she would suddenly have the power to control the weather.

“If you can only fight under the sun,” he told her when she complained about the wet weather and the cracks of thunder that tore shivers through her bones, “Then you cannot fight at all.”

More than that, Tifa would never forget the time that Zangan had brought her to the cliffside of Mount Nibel, a chilly November day where the snow had begun to fall amongst the peaks but not yet on the town wedged against its valleys.The gales had been blowing furiously that day, whipping with greater ferocity and anger the higher they climbed.

_Tifa was just a few days shy of her fifteenth birthday when Zangan announced that they would be traveling into the mountains. She found herself following him up the sharp, broken gray crags, fear latching onto a hidden part of her heart that was tucked deep in the back of her chest, connected to an artery that seemed to be pumping blood right into the fear center of her brain._

_She was terrified of this mountain, and she was reminded of that terror every time she stared at its cliff face. Zangan moved ahead of her with purpose, his heavy crimson and gold cape blowing behind him in the winds that grew stronger the higher they climbed. Tifa kept her fists, wrapped in sturdy dark leather, balled at her sides as they traveled the dark path deeper into Mount Nibel’s most tempestuous peaks.The pointed juts of the mountains formed white crowns around her, darkening away into steep, evil pits that threatened to swallow her whole and send her into endless black again._

_“Master Zangan?” Tifa called out to him, her voice breaking against the gusts.He was outpacing her, widening a steep gap between them that made the anxiety bubble up higher into her throat. “How much further must we go?”_

_He stopped, turning to face her, his cape billowing around him.He towered over as she neared, and she looked up at his massive form, at the wide, broad set of his shoulders, at the way the muscles of his arms folded over their length in thick layers of mass, at the way his jaw was set, square and full.Dark eyes narrowed, and Zangan was suddenly regarding her with a level of crossness at how far she had fallen behind._

_“To the place where your fears lie,” he finally answered once she had caught up to him._

_They traveled on, deeper and steeper, climbing up the path that she had last traversed in the days after her mother had crossed over.She could see Mount Nibel’s tallest peak, the one that guarded the mako reactor, and she could see the suspension bridge that linked the two halves of the mountain’s ranges over a plunging, deadly chasm.Tifa felt the terror wind and spin inside of her, and she began to regret this entire decision, thinking she could never go through with this, even as her booted feet carried her nearer, against the snow that began to fall steadier, against the gales that began to blow wilder, against the dragons that began to cry in the distance angrier._

_Her heart was pounding, beating a loud and violent rhythm inside of her chest that was almost painful, the panic threading black and yellow in her veins when she saw Zangan stop just a few feet ahead of her in front of the suspension bridge.By now, the wind was whipping her dark hair in every direction, and she’d instantly regretted not having the foresight to tie it away into a tail._

_The snow was cresting on her nose and cheeks, sending a chill through her flesh and brightening her cheeks to a deep scarlet.Zangan, whose skin had been so weathered and overexposed over the decades, appeared unaffected by the slipping temperatures and the force of the gales that whipped ice into their eyes._

_As she stepped closer to him, she saw his dark eyes flash and narrow.He turned to the suspension bridge behind him._

_“It is time, Tifa.”_

_Tifa stopped and stared at him, her eyes falling to where his hand was gesturing to the bridge behind him.He was waiting for her to cross over onto it._

_“Master Zangan,” Tifa began again, staring at the slope of the bridge as it crossed over the abyss, at the high, gray summits that stretched beyond on the other side.A dragon’s wail pierced the sky in the distance, and Tifa winced, even as she heard her own voice break and crumble under her words.“We can’t.I… I cannot.”_

_“You will,”Zangan proclaimed.“You will, if you wish to conquer your fears.This is your final trial.You will never say that you mastered the art of Zangan-Ryu if you do not complete this.”_

_Tifa opened her mouth to protest, but Zangan had lifted his fist into the air._

_“This is what you wanted,_ **_seito_ ** _.”_

_Tifa inhaled deeply at his words, swallowing back a cold gust of air that chilled her lungs and lined them with frost.This mountain - this very precipice, this very bridge - were the reasons she had begun to train under Master Zangan shortly after her eleventh birthday.This mountain that she had nearly died on when she stepped onto that bridge, her only intent to find her mother, who had left her far too early, before she had the chance to tell her everything and ask her everything and to tell her how much she loved her -_

_No.Tifa had fought for years to grow strong enough to defeat this mountain.She stared at Zangan’s outstretched hand, and she nodded, swallowing back a sudden acidic rise of bile that burned her throat with the blend of trepidation that was seizing her.She lifted her fists, which were still balled at her sides, and snapped both wrists, the leather of her gloves squealing as she flexed her knuckles.She narrowed her crimson eyes as she began to step forward, slow, careful steps, the mountains around her fading away into a hazy gray blur as the lip of the chasm and the wooden bridge connected to it came into focus._

_Zangan moved out of her way as she tentatively took a step forward by the edge, stopping her boot at where the rock broke away to the open pit of the crevasse, the heavy ropes of the bridge staked into the stone with thick, iron rods.Tifa leaned forward to grip the ropes, but didn’t move forward as she watched the bridge sway among the gales that passed through, the tip of her boot frozen over the edge._

_“Inaction breeds fear, causes it to fester and stir,” Zangan intoned behind her, his voice heavy and dark, swept up and away with the winds._

_Tifa took in a deep breath, pushing the day her mother died away.Pushing away the moment that she had stepped right over this very step and slipped, crumpling through the gaps in the wood until she was sprawling uncontrolled into the open air.Pushing away the moment a boy with soft blond hair and deep blue eyes reached for her wrist to bring her back to the ledge, but instead fell forward and crashed alongside her into the ravine below.Pushing away the feeling of the rocks tearing highways of ugly gashes across her arms and legs as she rolled along the crags, pushing away the feeling of her head smacking against the rock before she lost sight of the world.Pushing away the feeling of her father’s stare as he stood over her bedside, his eyes bright and black with tears, his face haggard and shorn, his voice bereft of the joy it held just a week before when her mother was still alive and Tifa was still whole.She pushed away the feelings of inadequacy and guilt that had stayed with her in the years that followed, even when everyone told her over and over again, that it wasn’t her fault, it could never be her fault._

_Tifa stepped out on to the bridge, her boot connecting with the first wooden plank.The bridge swayed a little more, and her shoulders tensed as she gripped the ropes tighter in her fist.Her eyes started to drift downward to peer beyond her boots and between the planks where Mount Nibel’s black hell lay below, a hell she never wanted to visit again.She pinched her eyes shut and lifted her chin._

_Slowly, carefully, Tifa made her way across the wood with her eyes shut until she felt Zangan’s weight on the bridge, shifting its sway and its tautness.She opened her eyes to see that she was nearly in the center of the bridge, surrounded by the gray and black peaks on every side, the snow now whirling through the gales at every angle so that it no longer fell in straight lines.Her hair whipped and spun and tangled in the gusts that blew between the twin jutting peaks; her face was stung bright by the cold.Her lungs inhaled a bright burst of frigid mountain air, airy and thin, causing their bronchi to hitch and every capillary to flare and pulse in search of more oxygen._

_It was exhilarating; it was dizzying._

_It was living._

_She felt Zangan stop behind her, and Tifa turned carefully on the bridge to face him.His eyes connected with hers when she paused, and she watched him carefully position himself on the wood, knees slightly bent.He raised both fists, massive and coiled, and he offered her a wordless nod, his dark gray tail flapping in the wind behind his head._

_Feeling the wooden planks beneath her boots, Tifa placed one foot in front of the other, her fists coming up in front of her in her limber, practiced manner, and her eyes narrowed again as she stared back at her sensei._

_Zangan moved first, steady but swift, a brick house that was barreling towards her. Tifa reacted with the instinctual precision he had taught her, and her fear of the tenuous bridge beneath their feet was suddenly forgotten, shoved somewhere into the far recesses of her mind.They began a reciprocating dance, a tug of war of twirls and spins and kicks and jabs back and forth across the bridge, causing it to begin to sway violently from their parries and thrusts.The gales were forgotten, nonexistent as they moved._

_Tifa grit her teeth against the determination that was rising, all heat and rage, in her blood, pulsing into her heart and sending her most basic instincts into hyperdrive.Her legs began to dominate her movements, until she twirled midstream in the air, a boot finally connecting with the side of Zangan’s face.She dropped to her feet, raising her fists to move in with the next attack, but Zangan stumbled back, then backflipped until he was no longer standing on the suspension bridge, but landed again on the dark rock at the lip of the precipice._

_He held up his hands in surrender, indicating for Tifa to stop.She lowered her arms to a resting stance, desperately inhaling large gasps of the wispy mountain air as the adrenaline in her blood peaked and rushed through her veins in a river of fire._

_“I believe,” Zangan began between his own inhalations of breath, “That you have mastered the art of Zangan-Ryu, Tifa Lockhart.”_

_Tifa stared at her mentor and teacher for a long moment, her chest rising and falling with her violent breathing.Then, she tore her eyes away and looked below her feet, down beyond the bridge at the deep chasm that opened up wide and black beneath her._

_Smiling triumphantly, Tifa looked back up at Zangan and nodded, crossing off of the bridge and joining him at the other side, falling at once into his open arms._

_The very next day, Tifa went into town and applied for the job as local tour guide of Mount Nibel._

Tifa sat at the side of the road by the small park in Kalm where she and Zangan frequently trained, her eyes misted over with tears as the memory faded away, back somewhere deep in her mind where she’d stored it away, forgotten for so long.The sedan’s engine continued to rumble gently where she’d idled it, the rain still beating a steady stream against the windshield.

After a long moment, Tifa widened her garnet eyes, brushing the tears away with her knuckles.Cleared of the blur, she could see Zangan’s large but hunched form standing across the park with his back to her, the hood of his cloak over his head, seemingly oblivious to the rain that fell in calm but persistent slats.Nodding silently to herself, Tifa killed the engine and slid out of her seatbelt, pulling the hood of her parka over her head.

She crossed the park, feeling the rain slide across the vinyl coating of her parka, feeling the chill enter her bones despite the layers she wore.Because of the deep chills still clinging to the temperatures, mounds of frozen, compacted snow still lined parts of the pathway that led through the quiet, simple Kalm park.Zangan stood in the center of a black top that served as both a basketball court as well as a kid’s playground.

As she stepped onto the asphalt, her boots began to crunch against the wet ground, but Zangan had already turned, sensing her as she approached.His eyes softened at the sight of her, and he bowed his head slightly.

“Tifa-san,” he greeted.“How are you, my dear?”

Tifa stopped when she was only a few feet away from him, lowering her head into a bow of her own.“I am much better, Master Zangan.I am ready to continue my training.”

“Ah,” Zangan mused, nodding at her as he regarded her, his dark eyes twinkling at her as if hiding some deep, undiscovered secret.“I suppose you are, you look healthy and healed enough by my estimations.”

He watched her for a moment, and Tifa couldn’t help but smile at his stiff consideration and study of her.He was a meticulous teacher; even in his old age, he missed no detail or calculation.He lifted an arm, offering it to her.

“Before we get to that, perhaps we could have a seat for a moment?Indulge an old man in a little bit of conversation before you put me to work.”

Tifa’s smile only brightened as she stepped forward to accept his arm, and her earlier tears were forgotten as she began to follow him to a nearby bench along the edge of the court that was mercifully sheltered by a line of heavy-branched maples. 

“Of course, Master.”

The rain had begun to let up, and they sat beneath the canopy of the leafless trees.Tifa pulled her hood tighter around her face and pulled her parka down as she sat at the edge of the bench, careful to not let the backs of her leggings get soaked.Zangan seemed oblivious to the water around them.

A moment passed, and Zangan settled under his cloak, flicking crests of rainwater away as he relaxed and warmed against the deep furs inside.Tifa shoved her gloved hands into the pockets of her parka, feeling the pain of the chill settle beneath her skin.If she could feel the effects of the cold and wet so deep in her flesh and bone, she wondered how Zangan, who had more than forty years on her, could stand it.

“Forgive me, my dearest girl,” Zangan began after a moment, and Tifa watched as he turned to her, and with him sitting so close, she could see how dark, how coal-black his eyes were.Yet she caught the gentle flickers of silver and shining onyx in his irises that shined, and the dull blue-gray of cataracts that had begun to form at the rim of his pupils.“I fear that I owe you an apology.”

Tifa was taken aback.She could think of no reason for Zangan to want to apologize to her, beyond the apologies he’d already laid at her feet for circumstances long left in the past.She tipped her head at him, her fringe spilling across her forehead beneath her hood.

“Whatever for, Master?”

Zangan chuckled slightly, then shook his head.“Tifa, when I first asked you about your training - when I suggested that I take it over, so that you would be better prepared - do you remember what you told me?”

Tifa hesitated for a moment, mulling it over.She tried to recall the specifics of the conversation, but the weeks had been a blur, what with her rough and increasingly violent matches, Marle’s passing, her fight with Cloud, and her endless onslaught of conditioning of her body to bring it back to its most perfected form.

“No, not exactly,” she finally answered.

Zangan hummed under his breath.“You told me that your husband - Cloud - that he gave you a reason to fight.That he was the reason you were doing this?”

Zangan stopped, and watched her face in his expectant way, waiting for her to fill in the blanks that he was probing for.At the mention of Cloud, Tifa felt the dull pain that was living inside of her for the last couple of weeks flare and swell, sending a small shockwave through her spine.

“I… I wasn’t feeling good about myself, Master,” Tifa admitted, tearing her eyes away from him and staring down at the ground by her feet, where the rainwater had pooled within the grooves in the blacktop, unearthing the dirt and grime and bugs that lived beneath the surface.“I’ve been so focused on my business and my kids these last several years, and I realized that I couldn’t fight the way that I used to, the way that I could when I was your student.He - he encouraged me to try for this competition.He thought it might give me something to look forward to and work towards.”

“And you said you couldn’t do this without him,” Zangan reminded her.

Tifa heaved a heavy sigh, closing her eyes and refusing to answer.She fully remembered their conversation now, and her knee began to buckle with anxiety against her seat on the bench.She clenched her hands into tighter fists inside of her pockets.That night, after that conversation with Zangan, she had gone home to Cloud, and everything had fallen apart.Nothing had been right since.

“Forgive me,” Zangan said again, “But somehow, I can’t help but think that this is all my fault.”

Tifa’s eyes opened at that, and she turned to Zangan, mouth parting slightly agape.She wondered what he even meant by that, because surely he did not know that she and Cloud were having a disagreement.

“What do you…?” she trailed off, feigning disbelief.

“I saw the way he behaved at the semi-finals,” Zangan sighed heavily.“He doesn’t hide his moods very well, does he?”

“I -“

“And you, Tifa,” Zangan continued.“You don’t hide things well, either, my dear.”

Tifa sighed, feeling like the layers had been peeled away, leaving her exposed and humiliated for her ineptitude and her cowardice.She felt raindrops trail between the branches above and slap her, awakening her again to her failures.She pulled her fists from her pockets and covered her face with her hands, embarrassed to face Zangan now that he knew the trouble that had brewed in her marriage.

“I shouldn’t have pushed you so hard,” Zangan consoled.“Men can be jealous.I should know that better than anyone.”

Tifa didn’t miss the way that his words had draped off into a rueful incantation as he finished.She peeled her hands away from her face to look at him, finding him staring off across the court absently, new droplets of rainwater falling in lines down his hood. 

“It isn’t just that, Master,” Tifa agonized suddenly, breaking him out of his reverie to turn to her.“I don’t think he was as angry about the training as it seems.It was other things that I did that… he found out about right at the same time.He won’t speak to me. But it’s my fault.”

Sensing the distress underpinning her crimson stare at him, Zangan’s features softened, his eyes glassy as he reached out a hand from beneath his cloak, finding hers and squeezing it beneath his own leathered palms.

“I won’t pry,” he told her softly.“Only you know what is in your heart.But Tifa, I have lived with decades of regrets for mistakes I made that I never atoned for.Years went by with apologies unspoken.I lived my life under the purview of silence and disappearance, with the belief that if I simply extracted myself from a problem, it might cease to exist.If I couldn’t fight my way out of it with my fists, it wasn’t worth it for me to face.If I had done things differently, perhaps… Marle…”

He trailed off, and Tifa couldn’t stop herself.

“Zangan, what happened between you and Marle?”

Zangan’s eyes were somehow even darker, shadowed but filmed with the salty layer of tears when he turned back to her, his large palm squeezing her hand beneath his again.

_Marle stood on the balcony of the apartment complex she owned in Sector7, one of several properties she managed to accumulate under her name as she pieced together and stashed away funds that both kept her and the ones she protected in the slum with a head above water while also sending streams of gil into AVALANCHE’s coffers, a hefty percentage going straight into Fuhito’s pockets._

_Zangan knew this much because he had been quietly investigating Fuhito’s activities for months._

_Nonetheless, he watched from where he stood a few feet away in the shadows of a rundown apothecary across the street as Marle took a long drag on her cigarette, sending a plume of smoke into the already stale air of the sector. Her dark hair was swept to one side of her shoulders, thick and a little frizzy from the July humidity.She was dressed in a long, flowing, dark red gypsy skirt, paired with a simple, short-sleeved white teeshirt that hugged her slender upper half._

_A renter stumbled out of one of the rooms, ambling past where Marle stood, causing her to flash him a dirty look as he nearly tumbled down the stairs on his way towards the dirt road.Zangan could vaguely hear Marle’s cusses float in the wind behind the renter._

_Heaving a sigh, Zangan emerged from the shadows where he hid, crossing the street and approaching the complex.Marle’s eyes narrowed as she saw him approach, her vision as sharp as a hawk’s, and she blew a fresh stream of smoke into the air._

_“Landlady trouble?” Zangan asked in a low chuckle, tilting his head in the direction of the drunken renter who was still making his way down the road in zigzags._

_“He drinks away his rent money every month,” she complained, her voice a raspy whisper.“I ought to throw him out on his ass, but he’ll have nowhere else to go.Lost his job Topside months ago.”_

_“Sometimes they aren’t worth saving, Marle.”_

_She rolled her eyes, smashing her cigarette out against the iron railing of the balcony._

_“You coming inside or not, Zangan?”_

_Inside, her apartment was hot and humid from the summer heat and the lack of proper cooling units in the slums, and it wasn’t long before they were a disrobed tangle of limbs on the top of her sheets, sweaty and disoriented from polishing off an entire handle of whiskey.Marle was smoking again, staring up the black and white television across the bed, droning a dull Shinra news report._

_Under the shine of the singular lamp in her bedroom, Zangan could see the subtle gray strands of hair that had begun to emerge on her scalp, infiltrating her dark waves, which had grown even frizzier in the heat of the room and their embraces._

_They both weren’t getting any younger, he thought regretfully as he considered what he had to do next._

_“I’ll be leaving in the morning,” Zangan said suddenly, watching the cigarette smoke climb toward the ceiling.Marle stopped, craning her neck to look at him, her blue eyes widening for half a second before they narrowed sharply again._

_“Already?Again?” she repeated both words with the sharp, digging edge of a knife, and Zangan felt it twist in his guts._

_“I cannot stay in Midgar.And Fuhito - he is not to be trusted.He is working with some of the most nefarious crime lords in Wutai, and he has been taking bribes from Shinra on the side.His intentions are not pure.”_

_Marle scoffed, pulling back on her cigarette.“Anyone who ever thought Fuhito was anything more than a cunning but sniveling little shit was out of their minds,” she looked over at him beside her on the bed in disbelief.“We all know that.Fuhito is using AVALANCHE to further his own personal causes.We work around him.”_

_“He’s given me up to Shinra,” Zangan finally revealed, his voice gruff as his shoulders heaved.“They’ve placed a bounty on me.Not that I’m worried, but I can’t stand in Midgar where it is too hot.The West is far safer, and I have many students on that continent.”_

_Marle stayed silent, the smoke clouding the room gray._

_“Come with me,” Zangan was pleading suddenly._

_A long moment passed, and Marle was looking back at him, her pale blue eyes sparkling.The crow’s feet were building at the corners of her eyes and lips as she frowned._

_“I’m not leaving Midgar.”_

_The next morning, Zangan left Midgar.He did not return until the day that he brought Tifa Lockhart to Sector7, many, many years later, asking Marle to take her into her care._

Zangan sighed, and his hand slid away from Tifa’s, retreating back into his lap beneath his cloak.He was misty-eyed again, and the rain was indecisive around them, picking up and then stopping, before gently starting again.They were both soaked despite the cover of trees.

“You were in love with Marle?” Tifa was incredulous, and then she was kicking herself for not piecing it together sooner.

“I’ve lived a long life,” Zangan responded, still staring ahead.“I loved many women.I was already forty when I met Marle.She was different from any other woman that I loved.Our relationship… it was special, one that held a rare kind of understanding between us.Yet I was a coward, Tifa.I say this to you now as your teacher, as the man you have listened to and learned from for so many years.I need you to understand my mistakes so that you do not repeat them, so that you teach your children to never repeat them.So that you do not live with regrets the way that I have spent the last forty years.”

Tifa’s voice was caught deep in her throat, trapped beneath a painful ache that was gutting her.She was filled with an incredible sadness, despair echoing through her as she stared at the man who had mentored her for so long and who had lost so much over the years. He saw his wife and daughter die in an assault on their village, victim to the first throes of a bloodthirsty and reckless war for profit.He sacrificed his well-being to lend his strengths to the cause that fought against those evils, only to be betrayed. He abandoned his only promise for a lifetime of happiness in exchange for a lifetime of transience and impermanence.

She thought of the fierceness in his eyes as they had fought that day against the gales on Mount Nibel, and realized she had never known what truly lie behind the man who had molded her into what she became on the cliffside that afternoon.

Zangan was rising to his feet, shaking rainwater from his cloak, before he extended a hand to her again, gesturing for her to stand.

“Come, Tifa.As promised, we must train for a few rounds.The rain is at a perfect tempo now for good resistance.But then you must go home to your husband and make things right.”

Tifa nodded and stood, not realizing that the tears at the corners of her eyes were now blending with the rain.

Teacher always knows best.

* * *

Tifa and Zangan trained together for a few hours on the blacktop in Kalm, the rain falling on them in alternating crescendos.Despite the cold weather and the slick wetness of the asphalt beneath their feet, Zangan moved swiftly, barking his commands at Tifa, criticizing her moves until she perfected them, taunting her with his own sneak attacks.She couldn’t believe how easy it almost was for a geriatric old man to nearly best her.It was as if his confession and their talk had sprung something spry and free in him, and he was determined that Tifa would not walk away from him unless she was at her peak condition.Her limbs were sore as she settled, wet and cold, into the front seat of her sedan to drive back to Junon to pick up Aster from school.

After shedding her parka to drip dry across the backseat, she cranked the heat up high as she drove along the highways, the blast from the radiator warming her skin and pulling the dampness away from her clothing.As she drove, she turned over Zangan’s words in her mind, letting her thoughts drift over the stories of his life that he’d shared with her, stories about him and about Marle.She realized that these two elders had been in her life for so long, and that she had never truly known them.It unnerved her, and left her feeling the stab of guilt again that she had let Marle float away without ever taking the time to venture into that side of her.

She would not make that mistake with Master Zangan, she resolved.

As she drove, her thoughts drifted to Cloud, ricocheting off of Zangan’s aired regrets.She and Cloud had been together for fifteen years.They had been married for almost ten. Like any couple, they had their disagreements and they fought.But they had been through so many truly terrifying trials in life - the brutalized loss of parents and a hometown, a life on the run, severe trauma and depression, the murder of friends and loved ones, the theft of adolescence and identity, the survival of a calamitous, apocalyptic event, terminal illness, even the re-emergence of their most ardent foe - that their casual domestic disputes often were so petty that they were not worth entertaining, and one of them typically shouldered the burden of matters in order to avoid a blowout.Tifa realized that they hated fighting so much precisely because they had spent so much of their lives in real combat, and their poor communication skills were a good enough excuse for their avoidance.

Their current dispute, which she was convinced was more about Rufus and the tens of thousands of gil in loans he had poured into their family’s trusts, than her reemerging relationship with a tired, lonely old man, was enough to send their relationship into tatters.And Tifa knew once again that it was on her to fix.

Thinking about how Cloud has slept so rigidly and coldly beside her those last few weeks, she knew she could not live another day with any regrets, just as Master Zangan had said.

The weather in Junon was much clearer than in Kalm, but it was just as cold.Tifa stopped at the schoolhouse right on time to pick Aster up, pulling the sedan to the curb.She spotted her daughter talking to another young girl with chestnut brown hair and a red jacket - Rhiannon, she remembered - her coat zipped up to her neck, her backpack slung over her shoulder.The two girls were giggling as they spoke, separated slightly off to one side from the swell of other students who were emptying from the schoolhouse, their cheeks rosy and flushed from the cold and their laughter.

Tifa watched them for a moment, her lips curling up into a smile as her daughter’s face lit up with joy, her friend having said something that was entirely too funny.After a moment, though, Aster noticed her mother’s vehicle at the curb, and Tifa watched as her laughs died away and fell into a broken heap, her face growing slack as she turned back to Rhiannon to say her goodbyes.

Tifa felt something twitch inside of her chest at the way that Aster’s face had so quickly and dramatically shifted, even if it happened in a flash.

The two girls waved at each other, and then Aster was walking toward the car, her head down.Tifa watched her the entire time, her eyes on Aster’s face as she climbed into the vehicle and sat down beside her in the front seat.

“Hi, sweetie,” Tifa greeted, turning the blasting heat down just a little.

“Heya,” Aster answered without much enthusiasm, not looking at Tifa as she pulled her seatbelt on and settled into the car, shutting the door.

Tifa sensed that something was amiss, but the blaring horn of a parent parked behind her caught her attention, and she scowled as she tore her eyes away from Aster so that she could pull away from the curb and merge back onto the roads toward home.As she drove, the silence grew thick, and she glanced out of her peripheral to find Aster staring out of the window.

“How was your day? “Tifa asked when she reached a stoplight.

“Fine,” was all Aster said.

Aster didn’t talk much, unless something really interested her or captured her attention.She usually responded to small talk with one-word answers or sweet, quiet hums, the same way that Cloud would when he was totally disinterested or bored by a topic.But Tifa knew her daughter well, and these responses were much more clipped and harsh, sounding completely off-put, then her normal after-school banter.

As they rounded a curve toward the residential neighborhoods, Tifa straightened her back.“Aster, is something wrong?”

Aster was silent for a long, long moment, and Tifa felt a wave of anger build up in her.It was bad enough she stumbled over her feelings all the time and even worse that she was married to a man who couldn’t communicate properly with words and let his mood do all his talking for him, but having a child who bottled everything up and preferred the silent treatment on top of it all was too much to bear.She swallowed, pushing down the urge to shout, and squeezed the steering wheel with both hands.

“Aster - “

“Why are you and Dad fighting?” Aster suddenly asked, and Tifa, who had her eyes on the road, could feel Aster’s royal blue stare burning a line onto the side of her face.

Tifa took in a deep breath, easing her foot away from the gas, keeping her hands steady.Internally, a voice instantly began to berate her for being so careless.She’d been so lost and caught up in her own personal trials and struggles that she hadn’t even stopped to think how her behavior, much less how she and Cloud were getting along, might affect their own child, who lived right between them and who had come right out of their very own bodies.

Stupid.Stupid, oblivious, and pathetic.

“What?” she asked, clicking on her turn signal as she pulled the wheel to the right.“What makes you say that?”

Aster clicked her tongue, loudly, and Tifa furrowed her brow, finding the sound a little disrespectful.If she hadn’t been watching the road, she wouldn’t have missed the way that Aster rolled her eyes at her before crossing her arms over her chest and turning back to the window.

“Come on, mom.You guys don’t talk at all unless its about dinner or stupid stuff like the energy guy coming over or the cable bill.And you lost your match.You never lose.”

 _When did she get so surly?_ Tifa thought instantly. _Or so fresh?_

“First of all,” Tifa bit back defensively, hitting the breaks a little too hard when they reached another red light, and she turned to Aster, who was still facing the window.“I didn’t lose.I drew.There’s a difference.”

“It feels the same,” Aster snarked without missing a beat.

Tifa’s mouth fell open, and she blinked, seeing the cool, unfazed mask on Aster’s face as she stared out of the window, her pouty lips pursed, giving her a glower that was all too familiar.Tifa realized that Aster was turning eleven in a few months, but it looked like the dreaded preteen years were already upon them.

She was about to respond, to explain, perhaps childishly, what a draw exactly meant when a car behind her beeped at her, and she realized the light had turned green. She frowned and lifted her foot from the brake.

She drove another block in silence, choosing her next words carefully.Mentally, she was cursing herself for not recognizing her daughter’s moods sooner, for not better shielding her from their relationship strains.After a moment, she tread water carefully.

“Aster… everything is going to be okay.Your dad and I just didn’t agree about something and - we just have to talk about it and it will be better.I promise.”

Aster didn’t respond right away.They were only a block away from their home when she finally unfolded her arms, dropping them to her sides as she shifted in her seat to face Tifa and stare at her.

“Why haven’t you just talked about it already?What are you waiting for?Uncle Cid said you’ve been like this since the beginning.What’s he talking about?”

Tifa almost lost control of the car.“What’s Cid know about this?”She almost shouted.

Aster actually giggled, but Tifa realized that the sound was purely sarcastic in tone, and she was again stunned by her daughter’s attitude.“Mom, everyone knows.Yuffie kept talking about it at the match.‘What’s wrong with Cloud and Tifa?’ she asked, and Cid said, ‘They’re both still dumbasses.’”

Tifa had peeled off her leather gloves after leaving Zangan, and her knuckles were white where they gripped the steering wheel.

Miffed and caught off guard, she said nothing else until they reached their home, Tifa pulling up into the driveway and slamming the gearshift into park, the car jerking violently as it settled.Aster had turned away and dug her PHS out of her bag, and was scrolling through it.When the car stopped, she dimmed its screen and reached for the door.

“Wait a minute.”

Aster stopped and turned to Tifa, who now had her dark red gaze leveled at her daughter.She turned the keys in the ignition to kill the engine, and then clicked off her seatbelt.

“Yeah?” Aster replied, clearly annoyed with how her mother had handled the conversation.

Tifa closed her eyes for a moment, digging deep into herself for courage.She had to straighten this out, and she had to do it now.She may be able to tiptoe around her feelings and her disagreements with Cloud, but this was her daughter.She had to clear the air and she had to do it immediately.

“Listen, Aster, you’re right and so is Cid,”Tifa almost choked on the words.“Your dad and I… we both don’t always say what we are feeling.When people don’t communicate, it leads to misunderstandings.”

“I know,” Aster clipped back, pursing her lips tight.

Tifa ignored the tightness in her voice, instead leaning close to her.“I’ve always been this way.Your dad - he’s different.He’s just quiet, kinda like you.Reserved, laid back.But me - I struggle.I’m always afraid of what people are going to think of me if I speak up.So usually I don’t say how I feel, so I don’t have to worry about upsetting anyone.”

Aster was turning to her more, suddenly far more engaged in the conversation.She stared at her mother’s face for a long moment, and Tifa felt sucked into the star shower that was swirling inside of Aster’s dark blue eyes.Every time she looked at them, she remembered the first moment she realized that she was falling in love with Cloud Strife.

“Is that why you trained to be a fighter? So you wouldn’t have to use words?”

Tifa just blinked at her.

“I mean, if you’re mad at somebody, you could just beat them up!” Aster exclaimed.“Instead of telling them why you’re mad.”

Tifa was caught in a whirlwind by Aster’s clever intuitiveness and also by her increasing gift for subtle humor.She opened and closed her mouth several times as she figured out her words.

“Now, wait, no.That’s not what I - “

“Did you beat up Dad?” Aster asked, and after a moment Tifa fell into laughter right alongside her daughter, who giggled at the thought of it.

“No, Aster.Listen - no.I don’t know, maybe that’s a reason why I wanted to be strong.But it’s not the only one.And it never helped me deal with my problems, which is why I’m telling you this.Listen, when I was young, my best friend - Aerith - when I first met her, I thought that she really liked your dad, and that he liked her too.At first, I was kind of upset and confused.But I didn’t say anything.I just kept it inside.”

“Really?” Aster asked, never having heard anything but near martyrdom in reference to Aerith Gainsborough.She was almost more of a saint than an actual person in Aster’s view.

Tifa nodded, leaning back against the car’s seat.“Lucky for me, Aerith knew the struggle I had and she made sure the air was clear.” Tifa chuckled sadly, an image, pink and resplendent, of Aerith crowding into her mind’s eye.“I thought I had learned, though, from that experience, that I needed to talk about my feelings more.That I shouldn’t keep them inside or bottle them away from others just because I didn’t want to face a confrontation - one that I couldn’t settle with my fists.”

Aster grinned at that.

“I say all that because, while I may still struggle, I don’t want you to think that that’s okay, Aster,”Tifa reached out to brush her daughter’s hair behind her ear - while long and dark and thick like her own, it was a little wilder and frizzier from girlhood, her fringe already grown out long past her cheek.As Tifa admired her daughter’s face, Zangan’s words were returning to her.“You should never be afraid to speak your mind or your heart, okay?And if you want something, ask, go for it.No regrets, okay?”

“Okay,” Aster agreed.“But are you and dad going to stop fighting?”

 _This kid was relentless_ , Tifa thought.

“Of course,” she rejoined.“ I’m going to talk to him right away and I will tell him my feelings, just like I said.Okay?”

Aster held up her pinky.“Promise?”

Tifa smiled, wrapping her pinky around Aster’s.“Promise.”

As Aster turned away and climbed out of the car, Tifa paused, holding the steering wheel again and expelling a massive sigh before she summoned the strength to climb out of the car.In the back of her mind, spinning through her morning with Zangan and now her sudden conversation with Aster, Tifa knew that tonight she was going to lay herself bare to Cloud until he forgave her and they could move on from this.

But first, she was going to kill Cid and Yuffie both.

* * *

Cloud got home late again that night, after dinner was already put away and Aster was in her room, using up her last fifteen minutes of phone time with Rhiannon, reward for finishing her homework early.As soon as Tifa heard his bike in the driveway, she moved his plate into the oven to warm, just as she did every night when he missed dinner, and went into the bedroom to put on a pair of spandex shorts and over the knee, lycra compression socks, along with a matching sports bra, tying her hair up into a high ponytail, preparing for her evening training session.Before she left the bedroom, she stopped and stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror, the same one that she had so harshly criticized her appearance in just a few months earlier before sinking to her knees in a heap in Cloud’s lap.

Lines had emerged and become more definitive since then.Her muscles were tight and toned, proud sculptures of stone under the smooth velvet of her white skin.Her waist had its characteristic dip, flaunting her hourglass figure that had been, for decades, both a gift and a curse, depending on how she looked at it.Her legs remained endlessly long, sculpted and shapely, rising into the full curve of her ass which was nicely highlighted in the black spandex shorts that stopped just a couple of inches below her crotch, leaving ample white space of skin before the black thigh highs began and ran their trail down her legs.

She smirked as her eyes traveled back up her body, to her face, where they paused for just a moment.

The tiny lines were still at the corner of her eyes - two per side.And they _were_ tiny - she was only thirty-five, she reminded herself.But they were still there, and she knew that they were now permanent fixtures, and likely to deepen as the years went on.No amount of working out or training would ever erase them.

But Tifa only smiled at herself, watching them pinch at the corners, watching her full lips spread, watching the rubies in her eyes sparkle before she turned and left their bedroom.

When she returned to the kitchen, Cloud was sitting at the kitchen island in near darkness, save for the light above the stove, leaned back slightly, his plate cleaned.He was killing a beer, quiet and somewhere in his own head.He shifted when Tifa appeared, somewhat startled by her sudden appearance.

“I’ll clean up,” he said suddenly, moving for his plate.

“Don’t worry about it,” Tifa interjected.

He glanced over at her, halfway sliding off of his stool, and Tifa felt her heart begin to pound as he stared at her.His eyes were suddenly drinking her in, scanning her from head to toe - her ponytail, her sports bra that banded her breasts, her shorts that were too short to be really even called that, and the lycra thigh highs that hugged her legs and enraptured his attention.His eyes remained on her legs for too long before he remembered himself, and he blushed and turned away.

“Oh, I was just going to go train,” she told him in acknowledgment of his study of her, coming into the kitchen to take his plate and carry it to the sink.

Cloud finally pushed fully away from his seat, his face dark red now. “I’ll get out of your way, then.” He was moving for the door.

“Cloud, wait.”

Cloud paused, a few paces away from the door.She watched his shoulders tense and roll slightly, and after a moment, he turned to her.

Tifa swallowed, her eyes falling instantly captive by the swirling aquamarine depths of his.They were pulsing slightly, glowing faintly in the dimness of the kitchen that she didn’t understand why he insisted on sitting and eating in when it would have been plenty simple enough to turn on the lights.She saw the starburst under the horizon of his irises, reminding her of how her daughter had looked at her earlier, except that there lived no green in Aster’s eyes, only in his, reminding her of how things had changed after he left Nibelheim, the last time she got to see his true, blue depths.

It didn’t matter how blue or how green they turned, she loved them, and she loved him, all the same. She would love him forever even if his eyes turned black as death and his soul crumpled and disappeared into ash right in front of her.

“Cloud, we need to talk.”

He stood there, staring at her, letting a beat pass.Then, in concession, he strode back into the room and sat back at the island, facing her with his knees parted, waiting.

Tifa inhaled deeply.She tried to remember the most stressful moments of her life, and why and how they had felt so brutalizing.She remembered the death of her mother, and her coping mechanism for that had thrown her off of the mountain into a coma.She remembered her village burning and her father dying, and in that case, she’d been split open by a slender sword and almost died once again.She remembered fighting countless enemies in the slums, protecting herself and her friends through day and night.She remembered fighting for the fragments of Cloud’s psyche, holding his hand in hers while they searched for them together.She remembered pummeling Sephiroth’s many misshapen forms, remembered rebuilding their lives only to have disease and depression tear them back down so they would have to fight again and -

No.All throughout that, she had moments where she held herself back.Words that could have cleared the air had been kept silent, buried in her heart. Moments passed without resolution because she bit her tongue or lingered too long on a sentiment.Sometimes her ideas were stolen because she took too long to voice them, and another discovered them with far more boldness.

What Barret believed in, he strove for.What Aerith wanted, she went after.What Cid thought, he said. The same went for Yuffie.

Tifa was not going to let her inability to do any of those things keep her from the man she’d loved for nearly three decades.She wasn’t going to be a model of cowardice for her daughter.She would not let Zangan down.

No regrets.

Tifa stepped forward until she was only inches away from Cloud, and she could see how her sudden intimate closeness surprised him, causing him to sit up straighter on the stool.She could tell from the tenseness in his shoulders that he was conflicted in his response, but she wasn’t waiting for him to make a move.

“Cloud, I’m sorry.About all of this.It’s my fault, and you’re right.I should have told you about the money from Rufus.There’s no excuse.It was supposed to be an anonymous loan through the WRO, but Reeve - he did tell me where the money came from.Years ago.And… I kept it from you, because I didn’t want to upset you.I’m sorry, and you have every right to be upset with me.I promise you that I am sorry and I will never do anything like that again.I will return all of the money to Rufus immediately.I’ve paid a lot of it back anyway, but I can pull the remaining funds out of Kalm and -“

“Shh…” Cloud whispered, and suddenly, she felt him crushing her body to his, tipping her forehead against his shoulder, one arm around her back, his hand pressed to the back of her head.

Suddenly caught in his embrace, Tifa shuddered and felt her throat tremble and clench, tears welling in her eyes.But she could not stop.

“I hate him, I’ve always hated him, I don’t know why he shows up at my matches but I promise you he’s just - “

“I know,” Cloud whispered harshly against her neck, and one hand was rubbing her back, the other tangled in her hair as she began to sob.“It’s okay.”

“No, it’s wrong, I was wrong, and I’m sorry, Cloud.I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

He pulled her away from him slightly, and their eyes met.His were blue, so blue, she almost could no longer see the hazy rim of emerald green that always reminded her of how much and how drastically things had changed after they’d separated as teenagers.For the first time in as long as she could remember, they were again the color of the sky above Nibelheim when they shared their promise, sparkling and pure, unblemished by foreign entities or enhancements.

“It’s okay, Tifa.I forgive you.”His hand was at her cheek, just as he kissed the wet corner of her right eye.

Tifa looked at him, feeling his thumb swipe at her cheek. “And Cloud, about Zangan.I’m sorry I didn’t consider your-“

“No,” Cloud interrupted, shaking his head.He pulled his hand from her back to cup both cheeks in his hands.“I overreacted about Zangan.That wasn’t fair to you… I know how close you were to him.I let him saving you in Nibelheim really mess with my head.And… I was pissed off about Rufus.I was sitting on that info for days and it really got under my skin.”

The vulnerability was beginning to become suffocating, but Tifa would not trade this moment for anything in the world.Everything was spilling raw and full into the open, exposed for them to both see, cleanse, and wash away to be forgotten.She brought one hand up to his face to caress his jaw, sweeping her long fingertips up and across his cheek.

“It’s okay, Tifa. I love you,” he said.

She was crushed, because she wanted to say it first.But he leaned in, pressing his lips to hers without waiting for an invitation or a preamble.As soon as she felt the soft warmth of his mouth against hers, she wanted to fall into his lap, and her left hand found his scalp, clutching the soft spikes of his hair.

But eventually, they broke apart, both needing air.Tifa fumbled, wiping at her mouth a little, staring at the floor, her cheeks flushed bright.

“I love you too,” she finally rejoined, and he smiled at her.

“Are you still going to train?” he asked her, his eyes bright blue beacons again, and when she stared back at them, they were almost pure blue, the way they had been when they first were seared into her memory.

“Of course. Want to join me?”

Cloud smiled at her, an unadulterated, genuine smile.“Yeah.Let me go change.”

* * *

In the basement, Tifa first began to stretch, waiting for Cloud to join her.Her nerves were aflame despite the fact that she had spoken so forthrightly and that her words had connected with him.

Just as she was coiling against a pair of tension ropes in the corner to work her abdomen, Cloud made his way down the staircase, wearing a simple white sleeveless shirt and a pair of dark navy sweats.She stopped, dropping the tension ropes to her side when he quietly padded off the steps.

They stared at each other for long moments, red connecting with blue.Tifa tilted her chin when she realized that Cloud’s eyes were wandering, trailing a line from her face down her neck, pausing at her breasts before they swept over her waist, her hips, and finally her legs.

“Do you want to spar first?” she suggested, her voice much quieter than she anticipated.

Cloud nodded, emitting a quiet hum as he pulled away from the stairs, making his way in her direction towards the mat in the center of the room.Tifa kicked away the tension ropes she’d dropped, hearing her heart suddenly loud and in her ears, and she flexed her fingers as she moved in quiet paces toward the mat, her vermillion eyes still squared with the cerulean of Cloud’s, which were suddenly swirling with wisps of bright sea green.

When Tifa stopped just inches in front of him, she brought her fists up, very slowly, feeling a spill of dark fringe fall into her face.Her eyes searched Cloud’s face, watching him as he dropped into his clumsy and imperfect stance, his fists coming up in front of him, positioning his stance with one foot in front of the other.She studied his face, the pale, serious lines of his soft boyishness, the gentle slope of his jaw, the wide, pink curve of his lips, the way his lashes were so long and detectable even from where she stood.He was beautiful.

He was beautiful, and he was hers.

“Ready?” she prompted, and just as he nodded to her, she moved in on him.

Cloud’s mako enhancement was his biggest asset, but it was no replacement for raw skill.He moved on pure instinct, twisting and dodging and evading as Tifa flipped toward him with her most brutal offensive maneuvers.She tossed her leg high into the hair, showing Cloud the full range and angle and stretch her body was capable of.She shouted as she powered her fist through brutal lunges, seeking to connect with flesh.Cloud moved swiftly with her tactics, parrying in an effort to avoid the collision of her foot or fist. 

As Tifa moved, something began to build.It was a taut combination of her desire for him and her desire to win in the ring, a desire to prove that she was the best who ever lived. Suddenly, the two ideals could not be separated from each other.

Just as the two notions surged inside of her, she somersaulted, not noticing that Cloud had briefly paused to wipe a string of sweat from his mouth.Her sneaker connected directly with his jaw, sending him spinning backward and slamming against the farthest wall.

She landed on her feet, claret eyes immediately widening as she watched him stagger against the wall for his footing, one hand coming up to his jaw where her foot had landed.Horrified, Tifa dropped her offensive stance and ran to him.

“Cloud!” she exclaimed, bringing one hand to his chin, cupping it gently,turning it away from where he cradled it in his own palm, smarting away the pain as he licked his lips against his teeth.“I’m so sorry! Are you okay?I didn’t mean -“

“It’s okay, baby,” Cloud responded, and she heard the dark hint of lust in his voice, just as he looked up at her, the aqua in his eyes suddenly ablaze with pulsing green mako around the rims.Tifa froze, feeling his hand drift up her arm that was at his cheek, before he seized her wrist, pulling it away from his face.

“Just be more careful,” he told her, and then, Cloud was pushing her toward the wall.

Her heart was thundering in her chest, building and gaining speed, hammering so hard and so loud that it was beginning to hurt.She opened her mouth to speak, trying to form words, but her brain couldn’t configure them, and so her voice had nothing to produce.She could only gasp as she felt Cloud push her face-first against the wall, just as his hand both found stock at the hem of her shorts, stretching the waistband of the lycra before letting it snap back against her waist.She expelled a heavy breath, just as she felt him peel them downward, along with her underwear, over her hips and down her legs, careful not to disrupt her spandex thigh highs.

As he pulled the fabric to her ankles, Tifa feeling his breath skirt across the back of her thighs, she heard him growl out a laugh, deep in his throat.Suddenly, both of her palms were gripping the smooth, pale white surface of the wall she was leaned against, searching for purchase.

He was sliding her feet nimbly out of her sneakers, shoving them to the side, and then his hand was riding up her long, long leg, trailing the dark length of spandex that encased it tight.She trembled against the sensation of his touch, needing and wanting it for weeks.

“I can’t believe you wore these,” he whispered between her thighs, and she felt his lips against the back of her knees, his breath hot against her flesh that was wrapped tight in the dark fabric.She felt him press kisses up the line of fabric until he found the hem, and when his lips met her skin, he bit into her, causing Tifa to cry out a little and arch her back, thrusting her bottom in his direction and encouraging him to grip harder at the flesh of her curvy rear.

With her shorts and underwear gone, her center began to pulse and leak, and Cloud, now crouched fully on his knees, was inches away from her arousal.But he was preoccupied with her ass, palming both halves of it in his hand, his eyes drawing continuous trails up and down her legs.

She turned back to him, their eyes connecting, his suddenly ablaze yet lidded, overcome with lust.As soon as their eyes met, his lips curved into a smirk, just barely touching her skin which was growing impossibly hot.

“You’ve been a bad girl, Tifa,” he whispered against her flesh, the green in his eyes sparkling against the blue, just before he lifted his open palm and slapped it across her bottom, sinking his teeth in to the red mark his hand had left.

Tifa let out a yelp, her hands still searching the wall for purchase but finding nothing but flat, open space.He continued his merciless onslaught, nipping at the flesh of her rear with his teeth, smacking at her bottom with an open palm, searing her skin until it bloomed bright red.Pressing her cheek against the wall, Tifa felt the rough onslaught kindling flames so deep in her core that her feet were spreading in front of him, her knees widening on their own accord.She slammed an open palm against the wall when he spanked her again and then sank his teeth into the tender underside of the curve of her ass where it connected with her thighs.

“Cloud,” she called out into the air, her voice somehow both loud but breathless.

She felt him chuckle against her skin, hot and smooth, and then he was moving closer to her, folding himself between her knees.His hands came up and splayed across both cheeks of her rear, where her skin was seared aflame from his violent squeezes, from his harsh slaps, from the piercing, sinking sensation of his teeth.He was pulling her apart, spreading her open for him, nudging her legs further apart with his elbow until she was nearly bent at the waist in front of him, her fingers digging into the smooth, painted surface of the wall until their tips began to turn white from the compression of blood in her veins.

Tifa’s mind was spinning, joyful that he was finally touching her in this way.She couldn’t care less how roughly he handled her at this point, as long as his hands and mouth were somewhere on her body.He could rip her apart with his bare hands, tearing her into shreds and ribbons of flesh and blood, and she wouldn’t mind; she would welcome the incursion, would throw herself into the pain and let him devastate her for the rest of eternity.

Instead, though, he slid his mouth across the tender, wet folds of her pussy, kissing her slick creases with gentle presses of his lips that had her writhing against the wall, slamming it again with her hands, lifting her leg to give him better access.She winced when she felt him slide his tongue inside of her, first teasing the tight rim of her opening before delving in as deep into her as he could press.His palms gripped the flesh of her rear tighter, his callouses rubbing rough and raw against the smooth softness of her flesh as he spread her further apart.Hot and open, Tifa let out a wild cry of need, releasing a feeling she had trapped inside of her belly for weeks.Her cheek, pressed so hard to the wall, was beginning to take on the indentations of the subtle grooves of the imperfections of the paint, and she dragged her hands away from the wall to her torso to peel her sports bra up to her neck so that she could squeeze her own aching breasts in her palms.

Moaning, Tifa arched her back towards Cloud’s face, encouraging him to lap at her clit, which was hard and desperate for his attention.But he was too clever, even for her sudden, jerky movements, and he steered clear of that tiny, despairing nub, ignoring its need entirely, even as she rolled her hips towards his face, instead focusing the haughty influence of his mouth on her tender, bright pink lips and the smooth, welcoming entrance to her innermost depths.She rolled her nipples between her fingers, pinching them tight and letting the pain surge to her brain to replace the pleasure she was seeking from the part of her he refused to kiss.

She almost cried when she realized that he was pulling away from her, once again at his feet, his hands gently caressing her bottom that was still hot and red from all of his coarse treatment.She turned back again to glance at him, finding his eyes wild and ultramarine, verdant specks flashing, glowing like twin lighthouses as he stared back at her.She expelled deep, raspy breaths as she watched him hastily push himself out of his boots and pants and underwear, before he pulled his shirt over his head with one hand, tossing it away to reveal his perfectly muscular chest, his toned arms, and his sharp, narrow hips that led straight to his hard cock, which was strained and pink and leaking and suddenly poking at the back of her thigh.

“Turn around.”

Tifa did as he asked, immediately, feeling herself grow impossibly wetter at the deep, rumbling thunder in his voice, at the way his eyes fell half-lidded when they met hers, at the way he bit at his bottom lip when he scanned her breasts, flush from her own hands, squished haphazardly out of her sports bra.He looked back up at her as his hands rose to her sides to help her slide out of the tight fabric entirely, tossing it to the side with his own clothing and leaving them both fully naked with the exception of her thigh highs.

Cloud stared at her for a moment, leaning in, his erection pressing against her thigh in a siren call, a warning.He took her face in both hands, forcing her to look back up at him, and Tifa felt herself begin to disintegrate under the deep blue that was pulsing in his eyes.The green was flaring, but it was losing a war against a deeper desire, one that was pure sapphire, sparkling against her rubies, unearthing all of the treasures of the Planet.She braced herself against the wall with both hands at her sides, terrified that she might slip and fall to the floor.

“I love you,” Cloud whispered, and before Tifa could respond, his lips were against hers, crushing her in a deep kiss, his mouth soft and warm against hers, his tongue suddenly in her mouth and probing it, bringing with it the sweet tang of her own desire.She moaned and slithered her body under his, yearning and desperate now, wanting more, and wanting it so badly.The bundle of nerves between her thighs was aching, and she was so wet that she felt her own fluids slide down the inside of her thigh.

Wordlessly, Cloud pulled his mouth away from Tifa’s, leaving her gasping even as she tried to reciprocate his sentiment.But she could not fumble her way through a coherent thought when she realized that he was hooking his arms under her thighs, hoisting her into the air and pinning her against the wall beneath him.Feeling herself suddenly become weightless, she instantly wrapped both arms around Cloud’s neck, holding onto him tight. He slammed his hands against the wall at either side of her to keep them grounded and secure against the wall.

His hard length was so close to her spread, gaping need where she wanted it, but he had not brought himself close to her yet.Instead, he paused to let their eyes meet, and as soon as her red met blue, she swallowed, surprised at the husk in her voice when she spoke.

“I love you too, Cloud,” she whispered, her breath skirting across his neck.

He bent his head as if in prayer, lowering it to the crook of her neck.He carefully slid his right hand away from the wall, keeping her secure with his left arm and the press of his body, hot and firm against hers.She closed her eyes when she felt his hand search through a long trail across her thigh and then her abdomen, before it slid over her slick heat, the pads of three fingers finding her clit.

Tifa slammed her head against the wall, igniting a spark of pain that she ignored completely as he began to rub firm circles over her ache in the just the way that she liked, drawing pure strands of stinging pleasure out of the most sensitive bauble of nerves on her entire body.She wailed out his name, joyful and needful, tilting her hips up toward his, even as he kept her pinned to the wall.She felt the vibrations of his reciprocal groan ripple across her shoulder before he bit into the tender flesh there, and she gasped as Cloud stopped rubbing her and instead began to tap his fingers against her clit in a gentle rhythm until she came, hard, crying out his name, her walls clenching and desperate to be filled, her fingers pulling at the hair at the nape of his neck, her eyes pinched closed so tight that tears were begging to spring free.

Her heavy moans and signs of bliss and ecstasy, whited out by the blinding flash behind her eyes, were the only sound Tifa could hear as Cloud lifted the head of his dick and plunged inside of her suddenly, replacing his hand against the wall so that he had her fully suspended and pinned under him, now sheathed to the hilt so that their centers were perfectly angled and flush against each other.At this slope, he was suddenly so deep, deeper than Tifa could ever remember him being, especially since she had carried his child.The tears sprang free from the corners of her eyes now, raining down her cheeks like a summer thunderstorm.

“I love you,” Cloud whispered again as he began to move, pressing into her.

It started slow, a deep, teasing pressure, the roll of his hips dragging her into a blissful agony as he caressed her deepest, sweetest spot, the part of her that he always managed to hit, but not with this level of intensity, not that she could recall in recent memory.She felt the tip of him draw circles over it, pulling her into a suffocating submergence of white space that flooded her throat as if she had been dragged into the undertow of the ocean. Cloud moaned darkly against her neck, before biting and then kissing her flesh there, before he began to move faster, rocking his hips into hers close at first, before beginning a rhythm of pulling almost fully out and pistoning into her with a hard speed.

“Cloud-“

The white opened up into neon pinks and purples, streamers of pure, ardent contentment seizing her brain and wrapping around her in threads as Cloud fucked her mercilessly against the wall, his lips pressed against her throat, the vibrations of his voice fluttering down the ventricles of her heart and slamming into the center of her being as he moaned and called her name against her flesh.The colors began to sparkle around her vision like a kaleidoscope, and Tifa cried, cried his name and cried tears, cried her heart out as she came around him, not once, but several times in a chain, losing count of the multiple orgasms he carried her through, leaving every limb in her body completely boneless and unresponsive as she begged for salvation.

Her walls fluttered and gripped him tightly, drawing out his spend as Cloud called her name into her ear and emptied himself inside of her, her pussy milking him for everything he had left to give her, the only muscle in her body still seeming to work properly.Cloud slammed his open palm against the wall several times as he came, and Tifa could only cry out for him, desperate for him to never, ever, let her go.

When they were both finally spent, Tifa was so limp that she was afraid she might fall to the floor.But Cloud had no intention of dropping her, and after taking a long moment to clear his head, he pulled back slightly, lowering his arms to shift her away from the wall and cradle her against his chest, bridal style.

“…You okay?” he asked her, his voice barely registering.

Tifa knew that she could fall instantly asleep there in his arms where he held her against the torrents of sweat that pooled down his chest, that covered both of their bodies.Yet she fluttered her eyelashes to look up at him, her pupils blown open from the succession of release they had torn through together, her irises bright, strawberry red and teeming with affection.

“Yes,” she affirmed, curling close to him, but holding his gaze, her arms hooked securely around his neck.“I love you, Cloud.Always.But I think I need a shower after that workout.”

He smiled at her, leaning forward to bump his forehead against hers and then brush their nose across each other’s. He nodded, and she held on to him as he carried her up the stairs, both of them naked and forgoing their clothing where it lay strewn about on the floor. Mercifully, it was after midnight, and Aster was already sound asleep.

As Cloud carried her into the bathroom upstairs, Tifa realized that his eyes were almost completely, truly blue, as blue as the ocean beyond Costa Del Sol’s shores, as blue as the night sky above Nibelheim when they made their promise.

And they were sparkling at her within a sea of stars, a tidal wave of constellations, alight with a new promise.

She was his forever.

* * *

The next few weeks passed in a swift haze.Tifa resumed her training with Cloud in the evenings and with Zangan in the mornings, the date of the Championship growing near, pressing toward them like a tsunami beyond the shores.After everything that had transpired in the last few weeks,Tifa was more determined than ever to best her opponent in the ring during that last match, no matter what the cost might be.

A few days after her reconciliation with Cloud, Tifa sat at her kitchen island, a spread of papers and her laptop in front of her as she phoned Reeve.

“How much is left on the Seventh Heaven loans?” She asked him bluntly.“The ones from Shinra?”

She winced when he read her the number, after a long pause.

“I’m going to give you an account number,” Tifa responded.“I want it cleared today, including the one that went into Strife Delivery.”

“That’s a lot of gil - “

“All of it,” Tifa demanded, and she heard Reeve sigh, before he promised to call his accountant and make the arrangements.

In the end, Tifa had to drain almost all of the available reserve funds from her Seventh Heaven franchises, rainy day gil she had been saving for emergencies and also for her plans for eventual expansion to the Western Continent. Yet it had been worth it to close that door and to fully put that part of the past behind her. 

She hoped that she would never see Rufus Shinra again for the rest of the days that she lived.

A day after she closed the loans, Tifa was visiting Johnny’s Seventh Heaven in Midgar, reviewing the previous month’s sales figures while he clumsily worked his way around a calculator, when Zangan phoned her PHS suddenly.

“Good Morning, Master Zangan.Is everything alright?I am in Midgar, but expect to be in Kalm by noon.”

“No need,” Zangan responded.I am here at the Midgar Fight Club in Sector3.What a fantastic gym!I figured we might train here together today, since you are already in town.The equipment is quite, ah, how would you say?State of the art?”

Tifa laughed airily, watching as Johnny ran his fingers through his red hair, which was graying at the temples, flinging the calculator to the side in frustration.

“I’ll be there in a bit.”

When Tifa arrived at the MFC, the gym was in its usual state, packed with combatants who were training against the weights and the mats and each other.As she entered, she glanced around the vast gymnasium, searching for Zangan.

She was stopped by Kotch, who walked up to her, once again shirtless beneath a dark blue denim vest.He gave her a sturdy smirk, appraising her from top to bottom, causing Tifa to curl her fists at her sides in response.

“Damn, Lockhart.This competition has been good to you,” he chortled, and Tifa took a step forward, raising one fist.Kotch laughed even louder, erupting into a cough, but wisely, he took several steps back away from her.“Your friends are over there,” he pointed to a group of mats in the far left corner.

At the word “friends”, Tifa’s eyes narrowed slightly.She tore her glance across the room, finding Zangan standing to the side of a series of mats with one hand at his hip, the other in the air as he pointed at Cloud, who was dragging a mat under his directions.

Cloud and Zangan were both there, clearly setting up the mats for them to train together.Tifa felt her heart suddenly swell, disbelieving at the sight of them working together, despite the fact that Cloud seemed to be doing the most work while Zangan issued orders.

Without hesitation, Tifa ran toward them, pure and absolute joy propelling her every step.

“Heya!”

Cloud and Zangan both turned to her, and Cloud, who was dressed in sweats, gave her his purest smile.Zangan offered her a quick bow.

“Ah, Tifa-san,” he greeted.“You’ve made it.Quickly, let’s stretch.We have much work to do today in only a few short hours.”

Tifa nodded, the grin on her face silly and wild as she tore off her coat and carefully walked it to a hook against the wall where Cloud’s sword was stored.Once she dispatched it, she turned to her husband, her eyes wide open.

“Cloud, what are you doing here?Why aren’t you working?”

She heard Zangan chuckle low in his throat, and Cloud’s smile only widened at her, but he said nothing.

Zangan took a step forward beside Tifa on the mat.“Ah, my dear girl.Let us just say we’ve come to an agreement.Now - we must get to work.Stretch immediately and show me your stance.”

Tifa grinned, pulling her hair into a high bun on the top of her head, and got to work at once.

Over the course of the next several days, Tifa, Cloud, and Zangan trained relentlessly, sometimes in Kalm, sometimes at the MFC, sometimes at their home in Junon, finding whatever space of the day that they could.They pushed Tifa through repetitious drills against the equipment, endless recitations of jump rope and weightlifting and laps around the track. 

Zangan was harsh, uncompromising in those final days. He shouted at Tifa, surprising even Cloud with his commands, pushing them both to the limit as they fought against each other.Persistently, he called on them to fight outdoors against the harsh early spring conditions, rain and the final waning snowfalls, Cloud far too clumsy and unskilled a fighter to keep up with Tifa’s attacks under any weather.Zangan chanted brutal encouragement at her as she twirled and parried and kicked, swinging her legs and leveling her fists against the air as she chiseled and perfected every single one of her moves.

“Always mind your surroundings,”Zangan shouted at her one afternoon, rushing in to assault her with a surprise blow to the rib, catching her off guard and sending her spinning out, Cloud stunned into leaping back from where Zangan entered the fray.“Your opponent will find every opening that you leave her.You must have your eyes everywhere, you must always be ready to act!”

Tifa rolled to a stop on the blacktop, feeling the gravel scrape across her legs.She wiped her mouth, gathering herself to her feet, staring squarely at Zangan as she rose, before she ran toward him, sending her fist in a focused shot toward his face.

Zangan, despite his age, pulled back nimbly out of her way, just barely dodging her fist.He sent an arm toward her back with the intention to knock her to her feet again, but Tifa caught it against hers, causing them to repel one another in a stark blow.Zangan laughed and snapped his forearm against hers again, causing her to double back away from him with a few leap-like steps.

“Training is nothing,” Zangan growled at her, his dark eyes flashing under Kalm’s sunbursts.“Will is everything!!”

Cloud stared at them both, dumbstruck.

They carried on in that manner for the next stretch of days before they were scheduled to depart for the Gold Saucer.Just two days before the Championship, Kotch stopped Cloud, Zangan, and Tifa where they were training in the MFC, presenting Tifa with her match for the Championship fight, a scorecard with stats in his hand.

“Good luck,” was all he said, tipping his bald head at her with a wink.

Tifa stopped where she stood on the mat, accepting the slip of paper and placing her hands on her knees to catch her breath for a moment before reading.

“Letty Martinez,” Tifa read aloud.“Undefeated record and former underground fighter from Costa Del Sol.Thirty-four years old.Trained in Zangan-Ryu.”

Tifa stopped, and looked up at Zangan, whose ruddy skin had miraculously grown pale.

“Oh, dear,” he said after a long, awkward pause, and Cloud instantly had one hand at his hip, taking a step forward.

“What does this mean, Zangan?Did you train her?” he asked.

Zangan had brought his hands to a steeple in front of his face, shaking his head slowly.Suddenly, Tifa’s heart was leaping inside of her chest, making her feel like she might space out and collapse right there on the mat.

“Leticia…” Zangan whispered between his fingers. “One of my best pupils.She will be a difficult opponent, Tifa.”

Tifa inhaled a deep breath, glancing back down at the stats in her palm.Her stomach was on its third somersault when Zangan took a step closer to her, taking her hands in his thick palm as he spoke again.

“As my pupil, she was second only to you,” Zangan told her, and Tifa looked up, her dark crimson eyes locking with his orbs of onyx.“You must retain your title.”

Tifa nodded slowly, realizing now that winning this fight had suddenly become so much more than conquering the World Championship.

* * *

Two days later, Tifa was aboard Cid’s latest model of airship, a sleek machine named _The_ _Marianna,_ named after his oldest daughter.Cid and Shera had three kids, two daughters and a son, and he had brought all three of them along for the trip to the Gold Saucer’s Championship fight.They were joined by Barret, Marlene, Denzel, and of course Cloud and Aster, Zangan along for the ride.

Tifa stood on the bridge of The Marianna, her hair whipping around her as she watched the Gold Saucer come into view, its bright lights a flood of rainbow colors that burst in high arcs into the sky above.Even from their position thousands of feet in the air, she could begin to hear the cacophony of music and the twinkling, joyful sounds of the Gold Saucer float upwards from below, signaling the endless amusement and baseless entertainment of the venue.

Her heart had taken up a permanent, throbbing rhythm inside of her chest, thriving with a slight ache that was caused by her own anxiety and fear.She had studied Letty Martinez’ stats a thousand times, and gone over them endlessly with Zangan, sitting and listening to every story he could withdraw from his memory about her opponent.Tifa had learned that Letty was a poor kid from a barrio in Costa Del Sol, a tourist village that tried to hide the high concentrations of poverty that lived beyond its sparkling waters and sandy beaches from the pamphlets and commercials that advertised its leisure. She learned that Zangan had taken up Letty’s training mostly as charity, after seeing her bullied by several older teenage boys in the village during one of his travels, after he’d knocked all of their teeth clean from their mouths.

Letty had always been wild as a pupil, Zangan had said, and she carried with her an anger and a resentment from years of hard living and misfortune that had translated into the violence behind her fists.

“Teef.”

Pulled out of her thoughts, Tifa turned to see that Cloud had joined her on the bridge, and as soon as he fell in step next to her, he slid his arm around her waist.

“You feeling okay?” he asked her softly, leaning in and pressing a kiss against her temple.Tifa dropped her thoughts of her opponent, smiling as she leaned into him.

“I’m okay,” she responded, the wind carrying her words away.

Cloud hummed softly, tightening his grip around her waist and pulling her in near to him so that she could feel his warmth seep into her bones.He brought his other arm around her, pulling her flush against his chest, and Tifa could feel his heartbeat against her back.She closed her eyes, letting the wind thrash her flesh and hair, listening to The Marianna’s engine’s tear against the sky.She hummed in response, leaning back into him, almost melting, and suddenly she no longer cared about the fight or the championship or winning or growing old and tired and weak.All she cared about was being folded in the shelter of his love and devotion.

“You’re going to do great, Teef,” Cloud vowed against her hair, and she could feel the vibrations of his chest against her shoulders.“I’m so proud of you.”

Tifa’s smile broadened into a grin, and she wrapped her hands around his forearms where they were hugging her waist tight.

“Thank you, Cloud.”

* * *

The following night, Tifa stood in the center of the dark locker room, staring into the rows of mirrors that lined the wall, examining her reflection from every angle.She was dressed fully in black - black sports bra, black shorts, and black, full-length compression thigh highs, ones that Cloud had personally picked out when they went over her wardrobe options for the match together.Her hair was tied up high on her head, spilling down the center of her back in a long, dark rope, her fringe skirting the sides of her face. 

Every line, hill, and valley of her body was in better condition than Tifa had ever remembered it.Even the stretch of skin that sat at the bottom of her abdomen, loose from childbirth, seemed to have tightened.Her thighs appeared massive, sculpted and powerful, running into long, shapely calves that were swallowed by the black lace-up boots she wore.Her ass was rounder and perkier than she had ever seen it, and Tifa indulged herself in admiring its curves as she turned in front of the shiny glass.Her arms were toned and defined; even her collarbone and the column of her throat were tighter than she remembered.

Tifa wiped her bandaged hands together, sending clouds of talcum into the air, and reached for her gloves where she had stuffed them into the waistband of her shorts.Just as she was pulling them onto her wrists, Letty Martinez appeared from behind a changing stall, stopping short when she saw her.

Letty was not very tall, but she was strongly built, and just as curvaceous as Tifa - full breasts and even wider hips - but packed firm with muscle.Her hair was long and curly, a dark midnight black that reached the center of her back.Her skin was a deep bronze, sun-kissed, and almost golden.She had a face that men might consider cute, a button nose and full lips, arched eyebrows perched high above dark eyes that were placed just a little too close together.

Tifa dropped her arms to her sides as Letty made her way to a bench, dropping her duffle on it with a thud, her eyes now connected with Tifa’s.

In her previous matches, Tifa’s opponents never paid her any mind in the locker rooms, aside from regarding her with curious or caustic glances before they entered the ring.But Letty was smirking at her, crossing the locker room with their gazes connected, her hand settled above her hip.

“Tifa Lockhart?” her opponent asked, her thick Costan accent dragging out the syllable in her first name.

Tifa licked her lips, considering Letty, who was almost a head shorter than Tifa now that they stood across from each other.Letty was clearly sizing her up with her eyes where she stood.

“That’s me,” Tifa answered.

Letty chuckled, crossing her arms over her chest.“I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Is that right?” Tifa responded, raising an eyebrow.

Letty laughed her response.“Oh, you know, married to that guy who saved the Planet, runs all those dives in the East, Zangan’s best pupil,”Her voice was dripping with a nasty sort of sarcasm.“I heard he’s here tonight, Master Zangan.”

“He might be,” Tifa snapped in response, clenching her fists at her sides to keep from sending them at Letty’s face prematurely.

Letty noticed her strain, her dark eyes flashing to Tifa’s hands at her sides, and she bit out another terse laugh.“Lockhart, always spoiling for a fight.”She turned away then, her dark lashes fluttering as she winked.“May the best woman win.”

Tifa watched as she disappeared toward the Battle Arena, and she heard the bell ring outside, signaling the start of the match.

The inside of the Gold Saucer’s Battle Arena was unlike any other ringside venue Tifa had participated in.The arena was massive, the stands piling steep into hundreds of rows that stretched up tall toward the high ceilings.They were packed, the venue completely sold out, and the result was a thundering, clambering echo chamber of screams and shouts and cheers, battling against the loud, raucous hype music that blared from a dozen speakers around the space.

The lights were almost blinding as Tifa entered the ring, the swell of the cheers instantly rising to a fever pitch when she came into view of the crowd.As she climbed into the ropes, she searched the crowds for her friends and family, but it was too dark to make out any faces against the contrast of the blistering spotlights and the lasers that shined a bright rainbow of colors in spectacular flashes that pulsed along with the beat of the music that played in the background.Knowing that they were all there - her children, most of her friends from her years of real fighting, Johnny and Lucinda and Mario - Tifa inhaled deeply, letting her breath out slowly.

Cloud was waiting for her in one corner, and Tifa made her way over to him, already trying to drown out the deafening roar from her head and focus her concentration.He offered her a mouth guard, and Tifa accepted it, slipping it between her lips.

“You got this, baby,” Cloud promised, and Tifa smiled around the plastic in her mouth.

Zangan appeared at the ringside, his hands folded inside of the sleeves of his robe.Tifa could make out the shine of his dark eyes under the gleam of the lights, and when their eyes connected, he nodded and dipped into a small bow at her.

“Zangan,” Letty’s rich accent was singing from where she had drifted from her corner of the ring, standing far too close to Tifa.“It’s been a long time, _Sensei_.”

Zangan merely stood and stared for a long moment, before he too offered Letty Martinez the same bow he’d given Tifa.Then, he turned to Cloud, sharing a nod with him, before he turned and disappeared from the ringside.

Tifa felt a mild panic surge in her gut when she could no longer see him, and she turned to Cloud, only to find him smirking confidently at her.

There was no time to question anything, because the buzzer was screaming, and the ref was shouting commands at the two combatants into his loudspeaker.

The fight began with a jostling dance.Letty seemed inclined to hop around Tifa, her stance fluid but agile as she bounced from foot to foot.She was hopelessly evasive, and the first two rounds of the fight were pure frustration, neither fighter getting in more than a few light body shots.They were both too masterfully matched in their perfection of Zangan’s art, and they became mirror images of one another, parrying and evading.

During the third round, Letty managed to twirl through a sudden mid-air kick that split Tifa’s lip open and sent her sprawling toward the ropes, the referee interfering with a blow to his whistle immediately.

In the corner, Tifa sat on the stool as Cloud knelt in front of her and cleaned the blood away, pressing a salve into the sliced flesh.Her dark red eyes shifted around him and scanned, and she spat out the mouth guard into his hand, sputtering.

“Where’s Zangan?”She demanded.

Cloud shook his head, tending to her wounds.“He’s close.Listen Tifa, you got this.He told me to tell you to anticipate that she’s going to do whatever _you_ plan to do.That’s how she just got you.Stop dancing around her and surprise her.Go for the kill.”

Still slightly uncertain, Tifa nodded as Cloud shoved the mouthguard back between her lips, and he pressed a kiss to the center of her forehead for all of the cameras to see, and she was sure that she heard a swell in the screams of the crowd.

The next round was a bloodbath.Tifa dove in with all of her aggression, no longer anticipating Letty’s moves but plunging right past them in an effort to connect with tissue and bone.Letty caught on quickly, and soon they both were trading blows to the head, flying into high kicks, sending each other skidding across the mat.

“Fuck,” Tifa heard herself curse at the blinding pain in the center of her right temple, and she shook her head out, only to find that her vision had doubled.Two Lettys now ran toward her, and Tifa threw her arms up, blocking the next onslaught at the very last second, only for Letty to sweep her foot under Tifa’s legs, disrupting her balance, before she somersaulted, a kick to the chest sending Tifa sprawling to the mat square on her back.

She hit the back of her head on the mat on her way down, sending a shockwave of pain through her skull that radiated down her entire spine.Instantly, the referee was at her side, slamming the mat with his open palm, counting down numbers next to her ear.She could hear Letty’s screams of victory carry off into the chants and cries of the crowd.

“Tifa!”

She heard Cloud shout her name, and she winced against the pain and the bright spotlights overhead.Everything was too loud, too bright, too painful.She just wanted to sleep.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, she was staring up at the dull gray peaks of Mount Nibel, jutting up against the dark sky.The crags were caving in around her, and a red dragon soared overhead, opening its jaws to scream fire at her.

_Inaction breeds fear, causes it to fester and stir._

“Tifa!” Cloud called again, and another ref had to stop him from climbing the ropes and entering the ring.

Tifa inhaled deeply, closing her eyes again, banishing the dragon and the mountains.Next to her, the referee slapped the mat again.

“Two…”

Opening her eyes, Tifa kipped back up, landing on her feet, her boots slamming into the mat.Stricken, Letty turned to face her, dark eyes growing wide at the sight of Tifa rising like a Phoenix from the ashes.Tifa righted her stance, throwing her arms up again, snapping both wrists before nodding at her opponent, the referee quickly scrambling out of the melee.

They ran for each other, both diving in with their sharpest assaults, two fighters who had trained under the world’s most legendary and perhaps most infamous martial arts master in recent memory.They fought in earnest, Letty screaming as she spun and kicked and thrust her fists towards Tifa, desperate to connect with sinew and split it apart.

In the end, though, Tifa had finally had enough, and she powered through an eruption of star shower, her fists connecting with Letty’s face and ribs in a succession of blows, staggering her opponent and sending her reeling back toward the ropes. It was at that moment that Tifa stopped, twirled backward, and then spun into a dizzying dolphin flurry that ended with a refocused kick to Letty’s jaw, sending a ribbon of blood into the air before she crashed into the mat, dead weight.

The referee initiated the countdown at Letty’s side, but it was obvious to the crowd and the judges who sat at the ringside table that Letty was down for the count.Without waiting for the official call, Scotch and Kotch were inside of the ring alongside a few other fight club managers, and she scarcely had time to inhale a breath before Scotch’s greasy palm was gripping her hand, thrusting it into the air in victory.Kotch was behind her, wrapping a championship belt around her waist.She spat the mouthguard onto the mat, her face splitting into a grin when she saw Cloud climbing between the ropes and running toward her.

“You did it, baby,” he praised her, and Tifa could barely make out his voice over the earsplitting noise of the arena.“You won.”

She couldn’t stop smiling as his hands found both sides of her face, and he pressed his lips to hers in a hot, triumphant kiss, sending the crowd into an impossibly louder uproar.

Tifa reveled in it, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed him back, flashbulbs erupting like sparks of lightning all around them.

Inside of the locker room, Tifa sat on a bench, pulling a hoodie over her attire and unwrapping her hands, staring down at the rough callouses that formed under her palms and the bloody splits in her knuckles.The exhaustion and abuse from the match were beginning to settle deep into her muscles and down into her bones, and Tifa was suddenly very, very, aware that she had overdone it, suddenly wanting nothing more than to collapse into bed, with or without a shower.

She heard a scraping sound to her left, and turned to see Letty Martinez approaching with a limp, one arm draped over the shoulders of her trainer, a young, handsome Costan man who was clutching her waist intimately enough to suggest he might be her lover.Letty’s eyes were both already black with bruise, and her nose was bent, her lip split open just as Tifa’s was.

They stopped when they spotted Tifa, but to her surprise, Letty began to smile.

“ _Buena lucha_ , Lockhart,” she said to her in her native tongue. “Maybe I’ll see you next year.”

Tifa opened her mouth to respond, but Letty and her trainer were already moving on, and her mouth hung open for a moment before she too, began to smile.

Outside of the locker room, Cloud was waiting for her right by the door.Her smile brightened even further when she saw him, and he leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek.

“I can’t tell you how amazing that was, Tifa,” Cloud practically crooned, his voice flooded with adoration.“I’ve never seen you move like that in all of our years together.You’ve become a powerhouse.”

Tifa giggled, pushing lightly at his shoulder.“Oh, knock it off, Strife. Don’t be so dramatic.”

“I’m serious,” he rebuffed, reaching for her hand.“Come on, Tifa, everyone is waiting for us at the hotel.”

Tifa’s face flushed as she tore her eyes away from his, and they walked hand in hand down the corridor toward the main Square, the dazzling, musical sounds of the Gold Saucer echoing through the walls.

Tifa was lost in a haze of happiness and self-satisfaction as they rounded a corner together, only to have it shattered, crashing down around her when she felt Cloud stiffen at her side, and she looked up in horror.

Rufus Shinra, dressed in white, his shimmering blond hair perfectly coiffed with the exception of a single, rogue strand above his eye, was leaning against the wall, another bouquet of white roses tucked under his arm.He had one hand casually in his pocket, and a devilish simper was on his face.At the sight of Cloud, it faltered slightly, and he stood up straight away from the wall, turning to face them fully.

“Rufus,” Cloud spat darkly, and Tifa could see the wires in his neck coil, could feel the tension build in every muscle in his body as he stiffened into a rigid force of destruction. Instantly, she was terrified of the impending bloodbath.

“Strife,” Rufus greeted, his voice silk, but laced with a nasty sort of poison.“I was just waiting for your _wife_ , to give her these,” he gestured to the flowers he held.“She’s rather impressive.Let’s just say I’ve… become a fan.”

Cloud started, moving forward, and his hand came up behind him to reach for his sword.Panicking, Tifa stopped him with a hand to his forearm.

“Cloud,” she warned in a whisper under her breath.

Cloud turned to her, and Tifa could see the mako rim around his pupils was ablaze with green, thrashing against the gentle cerulean in his eyes.Her own eyes, dusky and merlot, pleaded with him as they connected, and after a moment, she saw his features soften slightly.

A moment later, though, Cloud was suddenly crowding her, stepping towards her with the full force of his body until she was forced to stumble backward, stopping when her back slammed against the wall.He leaned against her possessively, raising one hand and splaying it on the wall above her head.Tifa saw his irises flare as he looked down at her, and his right hand came to her waist before he leaned in and crashed his lips against hers.

Unable to stop herself, Tifa moaned into his mouth when she felt his tongue meet hers, his body hard and hot against hers.The open display of affection in front of their adversary suddenly thrilled her in ways that were not unlike the thrill of defeating her opponent in the ring, but this feeling was flared with raw passion.Unprovoked, Tifa lifted her left leg high, the fabric of her black thigh high straining as she wrapped her calf around his waist.

She felt Cloud grin into their kiss, and his mouth claimed hers with more possession, biting at her bottom lip and sucking her tongue between his.His hand that was at her waist then slid down, finding the band of her yoga shorts and sliding right past it, beyond her underwear.Without preamble, his long fingers slid between her slick seam that had quickly begun to dampen, and he slid two fingers inside of her, his palm resting on her clit.

Tifa closed her eyes and slammed her head against the wall as he began to toy with her insides, his palm grinding against her sensitive bundle of nerves, causing her to twirl her hips sinfully beneath him.She tore her mouth away from his to gasp for air, and he instantly dropped his lips to her neck, drawing her flesh between his teeth before latching on for a powerful suck.

Her head still against the wall, Tifa, now completely flushed and bright red, lolled her head to one side, letting her eyes fall back to Rufus, instantly connecting with the pale, emotionless sky blue of his gaze.He was staring silently at them, watching them in complete stillness.When their eyes met, he held them, his carrying a wordless challenge.

As Cloud pressed up into her precious, delicate spot, the spot that only he could find, Tifa let her mouth fall open as she moaned, her eyes still tethered to Rufus’.

“Oh,” she cried into the air.“Oh, _Cloud_.”

At that, Rufus’ stony face broke out into a smirk, and he finally turned away from them, shoving his hand into his pocket again as he disappeared down the hallway, taking his white roses with him.

When he was gone, Tifa smiled victoriously and turned back to Cloud as he pulled his mouth from her neck and found her lips again.She let him rub and stroke her to ecstasy, until she came across his fingers, arching her back against the tile of the wall behind her, his name echoing from her lips in waves.

* * *

Later that night, after she’d showered and dressed a simple, dark blue, sleeveless dress, paired with clean, sheer, nylon thigh highs, Tifa, Cloud, and Aster, who was too excited to even think about sleep, left their hotel rooms to convene with the rest of their friends and family at the bar and grill on the first floor.When they arrived, two large tables had been pushed together, and the group erupted into cheers, Tifa’s name falling from their lips.

To her amazement, they were all there - Barret, along with his longtime girlfriend, Laila, sat together withMarlene and Denzel, Cid, Shera, and all three of his now teenaged kids beside them. Yuffie was supposed to be sitting beside Barret, but she was too excited to sit and was bouncing up and down next to her chair, waving her hands in the air as she screamed Tifa’s name. Nanaki had found a place on the floor beside the table, flashing a fanged grin up at her.Johnny and his wife, along with Lucinda and Mario were on the other side of the table, seated next to Reeve, who had also brought along a red-haired female companion whom Tifa had never met before. And to her great amazement, Vincent Valentine, whom Tifa had not seen in the better part of the decade, was seated quietly on the other side of Reeve, the only one who wasn’t raising his voice.

At one head of the table, Zangan sat, smiling proudly at her.

“There’s our girl!” Cid shouted, rising to his feet and nearly falling over, already quite drunk. He raised his glass in the air as a waiter passed by.“Hey, you!Get these kids some whiskey!”He glanced down at where Aster had slid into a chair next to Yuffie.“Well, not that kid.Hurry, cause we got a fuckin’ toast to make!”

“Marlene isn’t old enough to drink, either,” Denzel said, and instantly, Marlene slammed her fist into his side.

“Shut _up_ , Denzel!”

Tifa laughed, her voice ringing out like bells against the sounds of her friends’ cheers and laughter.She and Cloud made their way around the tables, finding seats beside Zangan at the head of the table.

“My greatest pupil,” he beamed at her, and Tifa instantly felt tears threaten the corners of her eyes.“You made me very proud today, my child.”

As she turned to speak to him, she noticed that Johnny had gotten up out of his seat and had managed to corner Cloud behind her.She laughed at her husband’s expense before she turned back to her sensei.

Tifa reached out and took his hand in hers, feeling the leathery warmth of his old skin beneath her palm.“Thank you, Master Zangan.Thank you for everything.”

“Ah,” Zangan waved her off, chuckling deep in his throat.“No need to thank me.This was all you, kid.”

Tifa smiled and nodded, praying the tears wouldn’t spill.She didn’t want to embarrass herself in front of nearly every single person she knew and held dear.

“What will you do now, Master?”she asked, her voice taking on a tentative edge.“Will you stay in Kalm?”Her query ended with a lilt of hopefulness.

Zangan hummed low in his throat, tipping his head back as he considered.“I don’t know, Tifa.I may return to Wutai for a short time, visit some old friends there, I suppose.”

Tifa felt her mouth slot open, but she couldn’t find the words, and instantly she felt the frustration build.There were so many things she needed to say to this man, and for whatever reason, none of them would form properly.She struggled, her throat closing in on itself and suffocating her.

She could not let this moment pass.She would not.Just as she had promised Aster, she would no longer bottle and hold her feelings in, allowing opportunities to turn into ghosts in her rearview.

“Master Zangan,” she finally began, her voice cracked and splintered.Her hand began to squeeze his impossibly tighter.“I cannot lose you again.”

Zangan’s face slid away into a smile, the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepening, the thick gray of his beard bushy around his mouth.“I will stay for a while, and I will return.I promise you this, seito.I will not leave you again.”

Tifa was satisfied with that, for now.She returned his smile, pushing the tears back.“I am holding you to that, Master,” she vowed.“If you do, I will hunt you down and beat rush you into the ground.”

Zangan threw his head back, and they both laughed richly together.

The waiter returned with shots of whiskey for their entire group, save for Aster, who accepted a cola.At once, Cid and Barret were both at their feet, vying for the spotlight.

“I got it, ya big dumbass!” Cid slurred.

“You can’t even talk straight!” Barret barked back.

In the end, they shared the toast, praising Tifa for her victory, and they all threw their shots back, Tifa wincing as the bitter liquid burned down her throat.A moment later, Yuffie was racing around the table, wrapping her in a hug from behind her chair and pressing her cheek against hers.

“Tifa, you are such a badass!”She was holding her PHS up to her face, scrolling through her social media feed with one thumb.“Look at this! _#Lockhart_ is trending everywhere!People are already putting money on your victory next year!”

Tifa laughed, backing away from Yuffie.“Oh, Yuff, I don’t think that - “

“You _have_ to,” Yuffie screeched in her ear, just as Barret got to his feet again, slamming the table with his good fist.

“Aight!Who’s ready for storytime!”

“Meteor!” Aster immediately shouted.

“Aerith!” Marlene cried.

“Shinra!” Denzel countered.

“Let’s go!” Cid was at his feet, Shera’s head in her hands as he thrust his beer toward the ceiling, some of it sloshing over the rim and spilling out.

Barret and Cid launched into a string of stories about their travels, roping the others in, Yuffie joining in eagerly, Nanaki occasionally indulging them, Reeve fact-checking from time to time.Vincent refused to participate, frequently glancing at the door, prompting Cid to call him a ‘gloomy loser’.

The drinks continued to pour in, coupled soon with food, as her loved ones shouted and laughed round her.Eventually, Tifa began to feel quite tipsy, giggling along with their antics.

Cloud leaned into her suddenly, capturing her attention by dragging his lips close to her ear.

“They’re gonna go on all night like this,” he whispered to her.“Let’s take a little break.”

Tifa started to respond, opening her mouth, but Cloud was at his feet, his hand locked around her wrist and pulling at it gently until she was at her feet and forced to follow behind him.

“We’ll be right back,” he said casually to the others as they walked hand in hand out of the restaurant.

When they were gone, Cid leaned back against Shera, a lit cigarette between his lips.“Haven’t changed since they were kids,” he gibed to his wife, shaking his head.“Can’t go five fucking minutes without putting their hands all over each other.”

* * *

The Gold Saucer never slept, and despite the late hour, the Squares were still alight with activity, noise, and loud music ringing from every direction.Tifa found herself breathless as Cloud pulled her along through the crowds, and eventually, they were riding a tall escalator up to the roof. 

“Where are we going?” she asked him finally.

Cloud eyes were bright and blue, shining at her as they stepped off of the escalator.“Don’t you hear that?”

Tifa couldn’t hear anything over the deafening roar of the Gold Saucer’s bustle and the haze of alcohol that was flooding her brain, and she shook her head.

“The fireworks, silly.We never really got to see them when we brought the kids here.Come on.”

She let him take the lead again, pulling her through a succession of corridors that were clearly meant for employees only.Absently, Tifa wondered how the hell Cloud even knew where he was going, but her thoughts were muddled and it was soon forgotten as he pushed open a door that led outside to an expansive rooftop that was fenced in by a gleaming glass railing.

Instantly, Tifa’s eyes widened at the fireworks that exploded into a bright array of colors overhead, loud pops raining on her ears as they exploded into stardust above them.The blues and pinks and greens and yellows were shining in bursts against the dark night sky, and Tifa felt her heart begin to pound at the beautiful sight of them.

“Over here,” Cloud was pulling on her again, and he led her to the railing, where they stopped to look over at the Squares of the Gold Saucer below and the hilly green expanses of the Western Continent beyond the desert below their feet. Awestruck, Tifa turned to Cloud, the colors of the night crashing against the burgundy of her eyes.

“This is beautiful, Cloud,” she told him, and he turned to her, his aquamarine depths sparkling and reflecting the blasts of color above.

“Just like you,” he doted, and Tifa tipped forward against him, drawn in by his warmth.

It was cold out here, and the wind picked up, causing Tifa to shiver.Cloud drew his arms around her, holding her close.

“You’re beautiful,” Cloud professed again, his words falling into her hair.“And you’re the most powerful woman in the world.Officially,” he added with a laugh.

Tifa only hummed against his chest, hugging him tightly.

After a moment, Cloud pulled back away from her slightly, looking down into her eyes, sapphires crushed against ruby. 

“Want to finish what we started earlier?” He asked her, a playful smirk suddenly stretching his lips.

Tifa only smiled in return, nodding her head as she felt her heartbeat begin to rise.Above, the fireworks continued to explode, some seeming so close that she thought the colorful sparks might actually rain down on them.

“Turn around,” Cloud commanded, and she obeyed, feeling him press her against the railing, his body hard against the back of hers.

Tifa sighed, her palms gripping the lip of the railing when his lips dropped to the side of her neck, trailing long, wet kisses along the column of her throat.She sang a moan into the air when his hands, strong and powerful, began to roam the front of her body, first finding her breasts and squeezing them under his palms, his fingers deftly pinching her nipples until they stood erect under the layers of fabric she wore.She squirmed in his embrace, winding her hips in circles, her rear pressed against his groin, discovering his stiff erection behind her.

He lowered his hands over her firm abdomen, his mouth now at her ear, whispering sweet praises to her that she could scarcely make out through the mist of passion and whiskey that was dulling her senses into a haze of pleasure.His hand found the hem of her skirt with ease, and he lifted it, hiking and bunching it up around her waist.She could feel the cold night air billow across her exposed skin. 

Hungry and impatient, Cloud was instantly pulling her panties down to her feet, bending down and tapping at the ankle of one foot so that she stepped out of them.He picked them up and put them in his pocket.

“Stay still, baby,” he whispered against her earring as he crowded behind her again, his knee nudging her legs gently apart.He pushed her forward slightly so that she was bent over the railing a little, and she could look out at the dangerous drop below, opening up into hundreds of feet of darkness.

The colors burst and flared overhead in fresh, loud detonations, just as Cloud slid one hand over her pussy, quickly finding her wet and ready for him.His fingers dragged trails over her clit, sloping to slide inside of her and press upwards, all of it causing her to moan out into the night sky, rising up on her toes as the euphoria began to build.

Behind her, his other hand worked to free his erection, and soon she felt the hot tip of it press between her folds, teasing her gently while his fingers rolled over her clit.She sighed and arched her back, pressing back against him, wanting him badly.

He slid the head of his cock into the tight ring of her opening, and Cloud moaned against her ear before he dipped his head to bite her shoulder.

“So tight,” he growled against her flesh.

Tifa cried out when he finally slid fully inside of her, pressing in deep until he found her spot, and she was so wet, pouring for him as she bent farther forward over the railing, hugging it with both arms as he began to move inside of her.Her cries became steady as his thrusts increased speed, digging into her deep, one hand holding her hip securely, the other still pressed to the sensitive nub at the apex of her flesh, his movements creating the only guidance of his fingers’ slide against her bundle of nerves.The climb was fast and powerful, and everything inside of her began to fill with tension as she snapped her head back, colliding with Cloud’s forehead as she exposed her throat.

“Cloud, oh, baby… please…”

He pumped into her a few more times, calling her name in tandem behind her.Tifa felt herself snap, breaking apart into tiny pieces, shattering to the floor as she finally cried through her orgasm, her voice drowned out by the bursts of fireworks above.

“Ah… Tifa…” Cloud called behind her as he finally met his own release, emptying deep inside of her.Her walls gripped him tightly, and she rocked against him, pulling every drop out of him, holding it deep inside of her.She felt him grow slack, dipping his head against her shoulder before he kissed her skin tenderly.

Moments passed as they stood there, gathering their breaths, and the fireworks display began to die down.Tifa felt her senses slowly begin to clear, the rapturous bliss quietly ebbing away.Cloud finally gathered his wits and righted himself, withdrawing from her before zipping himself up and fixing her dress.

Legs trembling, Tifa carefully turned to face him, and she instantly smiled when she saw the stupid, happy look on his face.Overcome with affection, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, long and sweet.

He indulged her, but eventually, they pulled apart.Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, staring down at her with nothing but love written on his face.

“You’re amazing, Tifa.Never forget that.”

Tifa felt a pleasing warmth run over her, the oxytocin crashing into the serotonin in her brain and making her feel giddy.She could only nod in response to him, elation eclipsing her.

He took her hand in his.“Come on, let’s get back before Barret or Cid come looking for us.”

“My underwear?” she asked him blithely, but Cloud only smirked in response, tugging on her hand.

“I’m keeping them,” he grinned, and Tifa could only laugh, following behind him.

As they made for the door, a final firework erupted in the sky above, sending a cascade of blue and red sparks to light up the dark night sky.Tifa turned to watch it, her heart settling somewhere calm and peaceful, happy and content.

Life was good, and everything was going to be alright.

_It's been a rough year_

_Been some tough tears_

_I've lost so fast_

_All that I had_

_But when it's time to_

_I'll fight for you_

_'Cause you know you are_

_Why I've come so far_

_I've made mistakes_

_And I've been hard hit_

_I say so what_

_So what if I did_

_I'm the clear eyed_

_I'm the comeback kid_

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for reading! I hope that you enjoyed this story. Your thoughts and feedback always leave me with joy and are appreciated.
> 
> Tifa Lockhart is one of my favorite characters, for a number of reasons. But writing this story made me fall in love with her ten times harder. There are so many things that I can say about her design and her story, but I'mma stop because I'm gonna start crying again.
> 
> As I said at the beginning, the inspiration for this chapter did come from literally my back pain and fears about growing older, but it really got its legs from The Midnight song, The Comeback Kid (lyrics are quoted in the passage at the end of this chapter). I encourage you to give it a listen, because it truly is an inspirational song about overcoming challenges and as I listened to it over and over again in the car, all I could think about was Tifa!
> 
> A note about Aster's name. Aster means "star" in Greek (who didn't see that coming?). Zephora is Arabic for "lovely flower" which for me, was a callback to Aerith and the reunion theme between Tifa and Cloud. I also chose these names because A & Z = Aerith and Zack, and also signifies beginning and end (I'm not sure if Square intended that when they chose their names, but holy shit did it hit me hard when I thought about it. My headcanons do be kinda crazy though).
> 
> Also, I'm pretty sure that Johnny's books are gonna be waaaay off by the end of the month XD.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, and see you next time!!


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